


The Universe Carved Us From Marble.

by fearless_seas



Series: Halemadge || Pythias & Damon [1]
Category: 18th Century CE RPF, American History RPF
Genre: Childbirth, Childhood, Coming of Age, Crushes, Death, Domestic Bliss, Experimentation With Death, F/M, Family, Family Loss, Fist Fights, Friendship, Grief/Mourning, Growing Up, Ilness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Lost Love, M/M, Memories, Minor Character Death, Period-Typical Homophobia, Religion, Separate Childhoods
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2018-06-13
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:50:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 18
Words: 63,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12012126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fearless_seas/pseuds/fearless_seas
Summary: The world moved fast and they seemed to lose themselves in chaos. They understood pieces of their souls before they even met one another. They both believe someday, somewhere--anywhere, they will discover each other; if only time will wait.The childhoods of Benjamin Tallmadge and Nathan Hale (1754-1769).





	1. Chapter One | Old Beginnings

**Author's Note:**

> I have been thinking recently because of other individual's recommendations to turn this in the future into a book. I have had the whole series planned out for a long time and I'd love to turn all the fics into a book--of course after cleaning it up on a few of them. Anyways, the idea was implemented into my brain and I thought I needed to stop jumping around and start writing from the beginning of my planned fics and work myself up chronologically.
> 
> Gifted to @asexualtallmadge lovely Lydia was the receiver of Rose Petal Hands as well and I adore their comments with every tendril.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does one go on living knowing their love is gone?
> 
> He lived a lifetime without him and some part of him just wants to let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dedicated to @gettallmadge on Tumblr because it's their birthday!

******February 17th, 1835 || 6:27 pm**

Litchfield, Connecticut

_____________________

 

          Perhaps the universe carved them from marble or the perfect stone. The softest rose petals and the sweetest rays of sun. The purest shades of sky and fatal tinctures of the seas. Oh how the roses wilted when the sun went away. In time, all those fragile pieces slipped into place and the forest seemed brighter in those days. Those years of youth compose themselves in his mind every so often and he’ll dry his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve. He recollected how that boy would always be inside of him, even as the brown of his eyes shone the reflection of the harbor and cut across the horizon. He remembers those days before he met him and how different it would all be if he’d never met the boy with sunshine hair and a heart of stirling gold. Now he sits in his chair and rubs wrinkled fingers across his eyelids.

          When the temptation becomes too insistent, he’ll rest his aching bones onto the settling mattress and slip his hands into the top drawer in his dresser. He’ll feel for the tearing box with his eager, hungry fingertips and a pang of anxiety would ripple through abdomen before his nails catch on the material of the wearing box frame. He would pause, breath catching in his throat and he grasped calmly for it, tugging it out of its place and onto his lap.

          How delicate he was as his trembling palms held the box like a child, removing the top of the box off and setting down on the covers. Dust was coating the pads of his fingers before he would peer into the box. There they lay, the only thing that survived of his lover’s soul and it was in the way it seemed to drip onto the paper among the swirling, faded ink. The parchment was retracting into a rusted honey at coarse edges, a few aged rips. He swallowed before proceeding. The hesitation embraced him over and the phrases swam in his eyes; he swore the letters twinkled up at him in the twilight room. So tame he was as he surged forward through blinding hesitation and tears beginning to brim his iris. He lifted the pages up on his blurring vision and he could never imagine that sunshine boy ever growing old. How desperately tired he was of feeling the soil beneath his feet while the one he loved floated in the atmosphere above; he failed to ever reach his outstretched arms.

          He blinked, clearing his eyes, _Friend Tallmadge_ , it commenced and a smile leaned heavily on the verge of his cheeks. He could almost hear his soothing breath on the fibers of his hair as if the ghost of him was glaring over his shoulder to read along side him. He did not look back, he felt his presence every instant the box was stripped. _Ever yours, Pythias_ , those were what his pen had composed in closure--he rubbed a finger to his brow and sighed in thought-- _sixty years ago_. The phantom skeleton of his penmanship brushed over the spiraling letters and the spine of all words. There was every poem and there was very salvaged verse. He gave permission for his eyes to close softly, sinking farther into the mattress and breathing in another wisp of air. For it was all he had left of the boy he once knew, there he was among the letters seeming still to breathe through the dying pages.

          There that boy was, smiling so radiantly as not even the entire galaxy could replicate. The shades of their love shifted before his skull and scarlet mingling so purely with some hue of merigold. He revived his voice in his head, even as the memories faded and the dreams became just fragments of before, he’ll still remember that voice and the way it used to harmonize him. He wished to press that voice like a flower and place it among his verses in the little crumbling box. That boy was gone and seemed only to exist in legacies and song. Not a person would know how intimate their touches were and not a single being would discover just how well he recollected the pattern of his heartbeat and breath. It never came as waves do, for it was always all at once and every day. That boy plucked such a fatal chord in him and for that he would never recover as time ticks by and the years became dull fragments of what they were before. It seemed so dismal to wrap him up in linen and tuck him away in safety to the deepest part of his drawer where he could never be seen.

          Perhaps, this time he can keep him safe.

          The boy lives no more and only among sheets of parchment and ink. But, he lives on every particle of his skin and every fragment of his thoughts. He would never let those pieces escape. Hands trembling, the old man rose those sheets to his heart, resisting the anger that fostered in his fists, keeping away urges to crumple it all. His love never got to grow old and he wondered sometimes if those lapis eyes would’ve ever faded with age or if his beauty would live on; this did not seem to matter, however often is crossed his mind. His intake was shaky and he held those raveling writings to his chest as if he was attempting to hold onto the memory of him and soak him in through the things he said in the past. He felt a hand on his thigh and lips on his jaw; he traced his chin and was exasperated that he could not sense perfectly just how he felt against his skin.

          It almost was like he lived a different life when _he_ was there. Even when he caught those sapphire eyes for the first time, he still does remember how something inside him pulsated and he knew it was not the first time he had ever felt him. His ribs began to ache, and he wiped a tear from his cheek, the words were settled back into the box and the colors scrambled to slip back in as he placed the top back where it belonged. The box was shoved to the back of his drawer where it resided and he retracted his hand, focus on hiatus before shutting the drawer. He sunk onto the bed and the scent of rose petals faded from the air. He laid back onto the bed and rested his head against the pillow as the memories of him were exhausting. The elderly man brushed his fingers over the empty side of the bed and he scarcely never imaged him appearing there and climbing from one of his dreams.

          His heart longed to let go and he grew in farther impatience at the thought of lacing fingers once again with him, pressing his palms across his neck, twisting ankles around his waist, laying his ear on that chest and listening to the trailing beat of his heart during as he did so long ago. He mused over his children, his wife and his mind drew him back. How grown they all were now. A pang of emotion fluttered in his stomach; no, for now, Benjamin Tallmadge clings to the pieces of Nathan Hale and holds them tight against his heart so that if his ghost truly lives in those sentences his lover might hear his longing and sense his pain.

          Ben’s eyes began to close, _oh, but for now, I cannot have you tonight._ The universe had truly carved them from marble, but Nathan was not there now to illuminate the darker parts of his soul. Ben checks the time and counts exactly how much time he has left, truthfully he counts every galaxy, and writes his own metaphors across the skies; but in all his time here, Ben had never seen stars as bright as Nathan’s eyes. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> \- Litchfield, Connecticut is where Benjamin Tallmadge was born.   
> \- From letters I have transcribed and such, Nathan Hale most often started his letters to Benjamin Tallmadge with "Friend Tallmadge" or "Brother Tallmadge"  
> \- Benjamin Tallmadge actually married twice. His first marriage was to Mary Floyd who died in 1805 and his second marriage was to Maria Hallett.


	2. Chapter Two | Clarity Within Reticence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Benjamin Tallmadge is born.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the longest chapter thus far I have written for this fic. Updates come out every two weeks in the afternoon of that week's Wednesday.

**February 24th, 1754 || 11:04 pm**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          It would perhaps become the theme of his existence: Benjamin Tallmadge was born during a storm. The icy wind caused the windows to rattle and frost coated the panes so thickly as one could not see past the frame. The roof swayed, cracking underneath the weight of the heavens and the father couldn’t help but pace the hallway wondering-- _worrying_  if the walls were going to cave in on them. He heard the agony down the hall and late hours of the morning were pulling upon his eyelids. He rubbed them, resisting the urge to press thumbs against his ears. The fingers of his hand were beginning to quiver. He faltered to his study. William was in bed upstairs, the one and a half year old seemed able to sleep through a hurricane. He shut the door of his study behind him, he couldn't hear anything more in here, however he deluded himself that he was amending the issue.

          The snow whistled outside, beating against the earth ferociously, the pads of his fingers nestled against the bridge of his nose and he sunk into his desk chair. Chaos surrounded the home but he could never fall in love with its warmth. Worry churned in his abdomen, it was eleven at night and before he could stop himself, his eyelids shut, forehead slamming into the surface of his desk.

 

____________________

 

          There was a hand on his shoulder, the rocking sway of the palm grew more violent every passing thrust and Benjamin Tallmadge Sr. leapt his head off the desk with a start. He wondered how long he’d been asleep and his adjusting eyes caught the horizon seeping in through the windows, gliding over the carpet melting into the carpet, the room looked as if it were on fire. A rouge film transfixed the glass, he swallowed, his eyelids kept locking and he struggled to keep them patent. Naught came into focus but the name Susannah. His mouth parted to form words but the doctor blocked him in tracks, placing a comforting palm on his shoulder, their eyes meeting.

          “She’s fine.”

          Relief colored his cheeks, he felt a sort of new sense of life throbbing in his throat. He rose from his seat on unsteady footing.

          “Take me to her.”

 

________________________

 

          He observed her from the bedroom doorway for a moment before joining her at the bedside. There was hesitation rustling deep within his bones that he could not settle correctly however much his feet led his form forward with a purpose and determination twitching within him. She looked healthier than last time, he noticed, her blonde hair sticking sweatily to the creases of her forehead. The child was nestled in her arms, it was asleep.

          “You’re here”, her mouth upturned into a strong smile, and he couldn’t help return him. He pulled himself closer across those sheets, linked at the hips. He stared down onto the tiny face, holding his breath. It was a son and the air released from his lungs, plunging deeper into emotion. A mop of sticky curls matted his forehead looking like melting caramel, tiny fists clenched to his chest and he studied the rise and fall of his weak and little chest. Benjamin supposed it was a beautiful thing, human nature, and the way everyone hungers for life. It was that alone that caused life to blossom: the tug toward chaos and love. He sighed and the air was solemn, there was no wind, there was no storm and sunlight was beginning to stream through the icy window panes, illuminating the bed.

          William stumbled into the room some time after, rubbed his eyes still in his night shirt, crawling over his father, and jabbing elbows into his gut attempting to catch a small glance of the new life. The infant’s face was utterly pale and he cupped William’s hands, blowing on them. To this the toddler gave a giggle and quickly grew bored of his new brother, sliding cautiously from the bed and trotting back to his room.

          "I hope Will knows that room is no longer solely his own," Benjamin trailed his son out of the door, Susannah grinned, baring teeth at this, shutting her eyes when her husband began to murmur prayers underneath his breath. 

          However reticent the atmosphere seemed to be, everything was shifting. No matter if the wind was not slamming against the wood and the trees were not ripping from their roots; his second son was born in chaos and was filled with things nobody would understand. They embraced the harmony, and life’s coves of ceaselessness, the brightest hopes were born sometimes in the darkest of places.

          They named the child after his father and the next generation of Tallmadge blinked absently at the ceiling, clinging to his mother’s breast.

 

**\----- II -----**

 

          Ben was quiet every night, even when he was young. There was a cradle at the foot of their bed, every night, the silence striking him through, an unease pang of anxiety would come to him and he’d rise from bed, slinking over to his infant’s cradle. Ben was always there and for some odd reason he was always awake, in peace, sucking on the tips of his fingers and shooting his large almond shaped eyes to his father’s face as it loomed a shadow over his blankets. Paternal affection always gripped him and he’d pick the infant up, laying him on his shoulder. It would be early morning before he settled the infant back into his cradle. The child would still be awake, flashing his long dark eyelashes up and tipping his head.

          His father caught a final inch of sleep underneath the covers before the sun inched across the horizon and Susannah twisted awake. She always found Ben awake, opening and closing his mouth as if he always meant to speak but no words came out of his little mouth.

          “You could always simply tell me you are awake,” she remarked, grateful Ben did not cry as William did when he was born. She tucked him underneath her chin and he lay against the warmth of her neck, drinking in her beauty. The top of his head, full of short springing curls tickling her skin and she continued shifting him between arms.

 

**\----- III -----**

 

          Her child never uttered a single noise. A few moments during the night, perhaps his restless mind grew exhausted in the afternoon but he was obliging to whatever life proposed to him. Susannah worried at first, cradling Ben against her chin in the study as her husband bounced his Will on his knee, a little giggle of delight shuddering from his aperture.

          She pursed her blushing lips, nibbling a little on the flesh, “Should I be concerned?”

          Benjamin Tallmadge Sr. knitted his brows, arching one slightly but not looking her way as to not alarm William who slipped off his thighs and clamoured to the floor. “What for?”, he inquired.

          “He’s so…”, she was lost in her frame of mind, scraping the sunflower hair off of her forehead and shaking her head.

          “Happy?”, her husband suggested, turning back to his desk.

          “Quiet.” she confirmed, shoulders falling, a little irritated.

          “You get your rest, and he is obliging”, he turned from his seat, shrugging his shoulders, “Whatever is there to complain of?”

          Susannah accepted this, gazing down into Ben’s face, parting the strands of hair off of his temples and he blinked up, mouth twisting somewhat into a smile; she couldn’t help but reciprocate this and she felt suddenly exhausted when he whimpered a little. “Dear, could you please take him?”, there was no coaxing and she handed the child to him, breathing an air of relief and stepping to exit the room. The burden of worlds conveyed, connecting in her chest.

          William glanced up as she held the ends of her dress up when she passed, “Mama?”, he was confused but quickly went back to his toys when she gave a reassuring smile.

          Her palm pressed against the doorway and her shoulders fell, Benjamin’s voice drew her back, “Susannah, he’s special.”

          She tossed a glance back to the desk where her husband was busy cupping a palm behind the infants head as he studied their child. “Does not every parent believe the same?”, she questioned, meaning it to be taken as a joke but it was like her husband could not hear.

          “Our boy has the most dangerous soul, Susannah, it is as if he is a thousand years old and has lived a hundred lives,” he sighed and brushed fingers against the infant’s wide eyelids, “There is beauty in such danger, he owns a soft disposition, and cherishes strength.” Something, she did not understand was, reached its warm finger to her throat. “Ben has your eyes”, the father peeked up from the child and managed an equally exasperating grin that Susannah rolled her copper eyes at.

          “Hm, however, I wonder whose hair he has acquired…”, she fake mocked, twisting her stance and tapping a finger against her chin quizzically.

          “Oh!”, his blue eyes revolved to tiny slits and he patted his stock of unruly brown curls that was beginning to gray at the roots, unable to be tucked behind his ears. “Do you believe I wished this upon myself?”

          She laughed, not replying and stepped out of the room, shutting the room behind her as she went.

 

**\----- IV -----**

          Spring descended on the valley, shamrock coating the hills and the branches that seemed like ghosts, were beginning to bloom to life. The roses twisted from their cedar leaves across the stairs rather picturesquely. William sat beside Ben on the grass, the infant lying on his back, staring at the sky growing rather amused whenever his older brother began taking his toy soldiers and marching them comically across his chest. Susannah shielded her eyes from the sun and squinted at her sons, she smiled, turning away to her garden again, rubbing a bead of sweat off of her forehead with the back of her hand. The ships in the harbor bobbed like tiny white ducks, cutting into the murky sea. A feeling of dread overtook her and she rested her fingertips gently against where her heart lay underneath the muscle and bone.

          She imaged them not being there. She swallowed, casting her glance back at her boys, beginning to breath a little heavier. She shook the thought from her head, but her fingers were quivering. She dropped the spade to the soil, viewing the ground as she rounded the fence, joining William and Ben on the terrace. She swept Ben into her arms and seated herself beside them. She shuddered as she felt Ben’s hand grab her finger as if he presumed something that she did not. It was there and she learned to appreciate the silence, regarding his all-knowing eyes with a certain peculiarity. There was something lingering behind the irises and she could only catch glimpses as his eyes cleared it every time he blinked.  

 

**\----- V -----**

 

          It was summertime before Ben met his grandparents for the very first time. It was at her husband’s urging that she made the journey to White Plains via carriage. William fell asleep on her lap and she rubbed his small head with a ringed hand, cradling Ben’s skull into the crook of the neck; for once he had fallen asleep and she blamed the exhausting heat. She fanned herself with an open book, propping her feet up rudely on the seat in front of her, trying to cushion herself so that the roll of the wheels did not jolt her from her seat or knock her children from her grasp. A sigh blew past Susannah’s lips and she tossed her head back, shutting her eyes for a moment.

          She loved her parents. She appreciated her father’s quiet kindness and sweet smiles; anyone learned to love the echo of her mother’s voice like rain patting a tiny roof, bouncing straight back, hopping into your chest and settling you with a distinguished type of glee. Mehitable Smith was open, a commodity only at fault when words escaped without any thought towards them. Her father, John would not stop fawning over William and the child bounded up the steps, wrapping arms around his grandfather’s neck before the elder sat him on his shoulder to shrill giggles. Ben awoke in this moment, cooed and leaned his head up. Heavy footsteps crossed the porch, the large smile of her mother, Mehitable glistened against the sun as a crystal mirror before tearing the child from her arms.

          “Let us see him now, Suzy!”, Ben seemed perplexed by this strange woman and placed his fingers into his mouth and soaking in her joy like rain. Susannah won’t publicly admit a little envy pulsated among her organs and she pursed her lips before giving her mother a stiff kiss on the cheek.

          The crows feet crinkled around Mehitabel's eyes, her eldest son's eyes she recognized knowing hers were not the same shade; those lay with her father’s spirit. As her mother carried Ben off into the house and she was left surrounded by their baggage, she slumped. Ben would never meet his father’s parents, even Susannah had never met them, they had died before she met her husband. She never forced him to speak of them, for when a slight mention slipped delicately into conversation, his eyes softened, deepening as a deer’s orbs.

          It didn’t take her long to lug all of the baggage (by herself) into the home. “Suzy, would you need any help?”, her mother emerged from the kitchen rocking Ben as if attempting to console him though he had not cried.

          “No, mother,” she replied, longing to hold Ben again in her arms. Her mother had never met her newest grandchild and she respected this however much it tensed her nerves. “I hope he is not giving you much trouble”, Susannah already knew the answer and smoothed the lace of her collar, flattening her hair back where it was beginning to fray from the humidity.

          That charming grin appeared, emerging as if from a cloudy day, “He’s the quietest child, oh darling, how marvelous he is.” Susannah was pleased, nibbling on her lip and not yet asking for him again. Mehitable watched her eagerly through sparkling, starving eyes.

          “Come on,” she beckoned, “to the kitchen.”

 

_______________________

 

          Dinner was bleak and though she had not appetite she nibbled slightly on her potatoes with the prongs of her fork and lulled Ben in her lap, offering him bites every once and awhile. He would only take the morsel after he’d seen her offer it hungrily to herself. William sat on her left kicking his feet out underneath the table with too much energy; she didn’t want to count the times she begged him to quit his actions, he only giggled and did not listen. Her mother attempted conversation but Susannah was much too tired to continue on, her utensils seemed to drag lazily to her lips as if it were lead. Mehitable Smith was an outspoken woman, it was bold, and her words were constantly laced with endearment; in some ways it was a flaw. Her tongue winded on like silk weaving with rusting edges to contain the silver underneath.

          Mehitable chewed a little bread, placing a glass of wine to her tongue, “He’s a little chubby, Suzy”.

          Susannah was caught off guard, feeling the dim exhaust of the candle begin to shed her eyelids in drowsiness. She eyed her mother and straightened her posture, glaring over at the end of the table where her father was beginning to blink nervously between the two. Mehitable did not to notice the tension, shuffling her plate to the side. Unsure of what she said, if this was a twisted reality, she cocked her head, almost begging her mother to have courage enough to repeat those verses.

          “E-excuse me?”, she stuttered, tugging Ben closer into her breast.

          “Ben”, there was a offhanded and distracted motion at the infant in her grasp, “He’s a slight chubby, have you been feeding him too much?”

          Susannah felt a certain type of protective anger shade her cheeks, the edges beginning to falter into a strange scarlet as she narrowed them like a predator under the evening sky lights. She was still unsure of what to say, struggling even to comprehend exactly what had just occurred. If this was not her own mother, in her childhood home, she may of reached across the tabletop and snatched them by the scruff of the collar. She allowed herself to compose for a minute. The anger faded and she stared down into her food, picking herself up with strings that drew off of her shoulders. Taking a bite, she offered it into to Ben’s open and wanting mouth.

          “I’d be careful if I were you.”

          “Suzy-”

          “He might eat you.”

 

**\----- VI -----**

 

          The sweltering season posed such an imposing figure on the coast town of Setauket and the dry summer heat smothered the air in the Tallmadge residence. Every night with the collar of his shirt undone and his pants hiked up the knees in bare feet, Benjamin Sr caught his sons right before they headed to bed and gathered them on Will's bedding. Will, almost two, still unable to comprehend the words pressed into the pages, quickly dozed off to the soothing melody of his father’s voice. The candle simmered in its frame, flicking over the words and seemed to catch them alight. The glimmer of the print shimmered across Ben’s abysmal pupils and his head leaned on his father’s leg, making incoherent babbling and pressing a jitting finger to the text. He looked as if he was attempting to read aloud the words but was unable to communicate exactly what he had read.

          “Ah, look at you, Ben, your already sprouting into a little scholar, aren’t you?”, he pressed a kiss to a mass of cinnamon curls on his thigh and nestled his hand to cup his tiny shoulder. It grew steadily past ten and yawns suppressed him, however many times he tried to close the book, Ben would protest, slapping a hand to keep the page open, still chewing on the ends of his fingers. He forced the book down after eleven and settled the child into his crib, just lateral of Will's bed. He looked to be drinking in the knowledge everytime he touched the pages. Ben complied and rolled his exhausted body underneath his blanket.

 

**\----- VII -----**

 

          Ben eat and drank in the precious words. His spirit grew more robust each passing day, and mother tried to read him like a book only to find out she could not understand the words; his father learned to live without clarity--somethings just aren’t meant to be understood. Susannah’s madness to understand her son played with her world; Benjamin realized that there are more important things that logic.

 

**\----- VIII -----**

 

          Their child began crawling in the fall, Susannah was desperate for more eyes as Ben’s silence made it nearly impossible for her to find him in the home when he had wandered off. Every so often, he’d crawl underneath the table let out a little shriek of pain when his skull went slamming into the table or chairs. Those were the only times she heard his tiny voice, it went straight into her bones, molding in the center, swimming inside of her. Occasionally when Ben grew bored of the ground he’d tug on the ends of her dress, looking up to her with rather soul eating eyes but there was a sink of protection there. She dropped her dishes, hands still wet before bending down and swooping Ben into her arms, his knees digging into her hip, she sat him down on the counter before returning to scrub the plates.

          “You could call me Mama, Ben”, she peered over him and he looked dressed up in intention, lips moving as if to say these letters of affection she wished to hear dearly and the flesh was forming words between his teeth but he shut it after a while and just stared back, crossing his legs and placing the tips of his fingers back into his mouth, fluttering at her with eyes that bloomed like windows to one’s soul. The expression in his eyes seemed beautiful enough to paint the horizons. Through the silence, she learned to see past closed doors with shut eyes.

 

**\----- IX -----**

          Four year William was bedridden that second February and his flushed face produced a tiny flinch of agony that nestled between his brows. Snow pelted the windows as Susannah pressed a hand to her son's forehead and swallowed hard. Sweat stuck his dark blonde bangs to his forehead and a bead of sweat trickled across the toddler’s temple, pressing half of his face into his pillow.

          Her husband didn’t laugh much these days and sunk a hand onto his forehead, rubbing his eyes lids in a circular motion as the wind danced around the house, whistling through the cracks in the ceiling, occasionally he'd pray. Benjamin would join his wife by their son's bedside, tugging her hands away and dragging the damp washcloth away from her grasp. “Susannah, you need your sleep, please.”, tears rippled around the corners of her eyes, reluctance clouded her mind. Knowing her stubborn aptitude, he settled on the end of the bed, gathering her in his arms where he felt subtle tears trickle onto the veins of his wrist.

          The doctor produced no results and gave simple remedies that they were already performing. The boy coughed from where he lay, eyes still shut and hardly opened as she tipped his head back to give him spoonfuls of tea or soup that he sometimes coughed straight back up. Benjamin no longer could drag her from him bedside and grasped the finger of a wobbling Ben who clung to his leg, unable to stand perfectly on his own two feet just quite yet. He lifted the child up and somehow his son was able to read the anxiety in his brows as he pressed a finger between them as if to settle the tension hardening between them. Benjamin faltered, cradled Ben to his chest and fastening the door to just a crack.

          “Will is going to be alright,” the father sighed, stomach falling, searching for recognition in those tiny little eyes. It flinched like a wave of gold. Ben thought so too and they padded down the stairs together.

 

____________________

 

          It would be weeks before William even slightly gained a recovery. Susannah continued to press the cold washcloth to his face as he twisted on his side and periodically crying out in pain. Gentle tears were brimming her eyes, crowding her cheeks when Ben crawled into her lap on the ending backboard of the bed. Her chest shook, tugging her son closer and wiping a knuckle underneath her eyelids.

          She was embarrassed, “I’m sorry, Ben”, she cleared her throat and gazed into her son’s face, threading her fingers through the back of his head into his twisting locks. Ben grabbed her finger with his hand and met her eyes, lips falling open.

          “Mama”

          The voice was small, high and laced with honey on every verse. She was petrified and she swelled with something new that had never been experienced before. Ben never tore his gaze off of her, tipping his chin up to meet her watch and he blinked innocently several times. In gazing to the soundness of his soul, she learned to listen to the way he looked at her. Ben was like music that everyone yearned to hear; there was no such more meaning than the one in his stare. She held him close and her head swam dizzy with all the possibilities.

          William was awake a few days, opening his eyes with his little brother curled up beside him with a thumb in his mouth.

 

**\----- X -----**

 

          It was the 25th and Benjamin Tallmadge Jr was now a year old. Before William, Susannah never understood why you’d celebrate a birthday for someone who hardly understood it was theirs. Ben was different, he seemed to know it was the day, as if he’d celebrated it for centuries before in a hundred separate lives.

 

**\----- XI -----**

 

          Susannah grew into the routine of rare words and they felt like a comet every time she heard them shatter the air with the weight of their magnitude. She pressed a palm to her stomach and by June was feeling the exhaustion of a third child forming in her abdomen. Her husband's delighted shriek at the news of a possible third son months ago still rang in her ears and she winced; the pain seemed enough for her to witness such an expression of joy. Truth be told, she wasn’t ready for a daughter, wasn’t ready to raise her like a delicate rose in society’s garden and instill her with duty from the moment she breathed in life. She still remembered mid March when nausea shuddered in her throat and Ben glanced up from the table with concern, uttering one single word that consisted to thrum in her ears:

          “Baby”

          His eyes fell to her stomach as if he could see right through her and her eyes widened. Her third child was expected in November and she wondered just how Ben knew at such a young age. She flopped onto the couch in the study, tilting her head back and lacing her fingers above her stomach. Ben was beside her, flipping through a book he couldn’t possibly be able to read--not to mention that it was upside down. A small smile creeped over her face when she witnessed this scene. Her husband groaned from his seat, twisted his arms above his head and stretching. She peeled herself off the couch, coming up behind him and sliding her hands across his chest. He peered back up at her, turning in his chair whilst grabbing her hand and leaping her close.

          Her husband tugged off his wire frame glasses, placing them on the table and settling his dripping quill into the swirling, sinking ink jar. He pressed his large hands onto her stomach and a tiny giggle pressed out her usually firm lips. Susannah peered onto the parchment, _June 6th, 1755_ reading back to her as she tilted her head to the side, cocking it quizzically. She was grateful that it was not yet the throttling, suffocating heat of July and she still classified the late breeze across the hills and bay as late, late spring when the sun hadn’t yet burnt the crisp leaves or dried the soil into fine cracks as if preparing for hell to swallow the ground and those where they stand.

          There was a cramped groan and she passed a glance over her shoulder as Ben turned round and slid cautiously off the couch until his toes pressed against the floorboards and he tottered over to the window, grasping the window frame and catching the sun as it began its ascent into the sky, still glittering through the tree branches in the late morning. The glimmer fell upon her son’s countenance and he didn’t seem to squint from the luminescence. Susannah almost opened her mouth to speak but closed it, watching him lean closer until his forehead pressed against the glass and his breath steam the surfaced. She was used to his glances of determination but it struck a chord in her, rubbing the gold cross the dangled from a chain around her neck with two fingers.

          “Ben?”, she swallowed with great difficulty.

          He did not reply, and she swore the sunlight had transformed him, grasping at his hair with hungry strokes and sinking into the color. He seemed to observe the horizon as if the sky carried his mind while his feet were on the ground, they both met at this distance in a place where nature stroked the heavens, where in that place dreams became a lost reality. Fire was burning the ice in his eyes as he treaded through scorching flames just to sense the warmth. The hues of scarlet and orange filled the room where he stood like a shadow and transformed the brush of his tender fingertips.

          But Ben did reply, reluctantly inching his gaze away from the startling light and meeting her questioning glances, his simper was as delicate as a crescent moon, and it was remarkable to witness the moon during the day as if he intended to be beautifully out of place among this existence. The shine of this filled up her soul and she touched a hand to her heart, even though she knew he was not grinning at _her_. And he turned back to watch these moving tinctures and stretched on reaching toes to see who was on the other side watching it too.

          His world was colliding with someone who’d transformed the colors of his leaves with shades of their sky.

          The world shifted on a tilted stage and all uncertainty ceased. His finger raised, pressing against the window panels, “Sun”, he said.

          The story of his life appeared in frames and memories the boy had yet to recollect; a poem he had not yet written and a story he always wanted to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> \- Benjamin Tallmadge was in fact named after his father who was also named Benjamin Tallmadge.   
> \- William was Benjamin Tallmadge's first brother and the only one who was older than him. He was born in 1752 in October.   
> \- There are no accounts or drawings of any of Benjamin Tallmadge's family beside himself so most of the descriptions are up for my own interpretation.   
> \- The child Susannah Tallmadge is pregnant with is Ben's second brother, Samuel, born in November of 1755.   
> \- June 6th, 1755 is Nathan Hale's birthdate.


	3. Chapter Three | Weak Bones

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan Hale is born.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Usually before I even start writing something I plan everything out, however, this time I did it differently and only a week ago finished with completely writing down the total amount of chapters it will have and the events within those chapters. I have six chapters written so far, and this is chapter three being uploaded to you. 
> 
> Hope you enjoy! If you've been here this long, thank you so much. Comments brighten my day immensely, I've had a terrible week.

**June 6th, 1755**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- I -----**

 

          The earth appeared to be cloaked in an impenetrable blanket of sunlight; born with weakness to fall and strength to rise. As afternoon settled upon the Hale farm, Richard Hale wiped a bead of sweat that had trickled onto his brow. It furrowed as his feet crunched on the dirt path that spiraled into his home. Anxiety was churning like butter in his gut as he pressed his lips until a firm line, shielding his eyes from the streaming sunlight and observing his workmen. He snapped angrily at two of them who were caught in idle chatter with their gentle laughs echoing and resounding across the hills. He fought the urge to come to blows, battling with temptation enough not to head indoors for the sixth time this morning to check upon his wife.

          The summer heat was setting his temper farther on edge and he gritted his teeth, leaning against a fence post and inspecting the rolling ivy of the hills and how it all arose to shimmer in such a delicate emerald under the beautiful late morning breeze. He was almost lost in his own thoughts for a minute and forgot the new child on the way, teeth beginning to ease off the flesh of his lip where it was holding for dear life, searching for some type of consolation. Richard nearly bit his tongue when he heard the shuffling of feet scurrying down the creaking porch to the dirt path leading towards him. Tossed out of his trance the old maid placed a palm down on his shoulder and he spun around to greet her.

          There was a flinch of hope splintering the creases of his eyes. He already knew the child was born a month early. 

          “It is a son.” He didn’t care for a section of time before the old nurse flattened her outfit, never releasing her gaze off of his. He was stuck not standing in reality as he blinked several times attempting to comprehend this information. “Mr. Hale, the child is premature.”

          Something shattered within him but he couldn’t exactly place where the cracks were located when the shards dug into his skin--there was a sharp ringing deep within his eardrums and he forgot the sweat that was building up behind his collar. His workers pausing, leaning against their plows and casting their glances in his direction, muttering discretely among one another. A sigh tumbled past his lips and he felt the indent seething from where he’d clamped down.

          Richard strutted, stalking through the mounds to the audience of curious workers that thronged into a culminating crowd. The maid remained stoic in the background, awaiting his return. For a moment they feared he may rage at their sloth but he remained calm with a face of iron, stepping before them. “The lord be praised for the mother and the child. Let him be a worth servant,” the formation of a cross drew breath as he motioned across his chest and smothered himself in the allure of the lambent rather than the perplexed visages of his workers. His scrutiny shot back, focusing, “do as you will with your time.”

          The nurse was still lingered when he came back from the fields and their feet flurried towards the home. Richard swallowed, he’d never lost a child before and he shook his head as if to dispel this thought forever from the cavity of his skull. He stepped close, grasping to open the door before the maid stepped forward, blocking him. “Are you, sir, to name the child a junior?”

          The question tangled him off guard and he grasped for those eager, nagging thoughts that were swimming within him. “He shall be called after that righteous and patriot man, my kinsman, Nathan, and I shall be well pleased if he have a high sense of duty.”

          There was a striking acceptance as she pulled herself aside for him to clear him a path into the struggling air of their crimson home. The sun escaped from his skin as strided inside, feeling relief despite the circumstances. He knew he may burn, but he inched himself closer to the room.

 

**\----- II -----**

 

          Premature he was. A bald blossom who struggled for breath-- _for life_ \--, wind escaping his feeble lungs with great effort. Richard submerged himself within the room and he felt out of place among such misery as one who bursts into laughter at a funeral. Elizabeth seemed tired, exhausted, not paying the slightest stretch of attention when the door slid open across the floor. The child was not nestled someplace safe within her arms, resting he was propped on his back against a feather pillow. Eyes only sooty slivers, shut to the light seeping in through the window. He scooped the child gently into his hands, he was hardly larger than his wrist with a tiny, soft and delicate skull. A little noise left his chest when the body position shifted. So beautifully peaceful in a special way.

          An emotion overtook him. He was fragile, he was modest and there wasn’t a thing he would change. “Elizabeth?”, a humble voice came forth, and he’d never felt smaller in his existence. Everything was pulsating around him, heart sweltering through cracking ribs. She did not budge from where she lay, vision finding the clouds a sense of more heaven than anything she’d created. “Wouldn’t you like to hold, Nathan?”, he asked, gulping and he was reluctant to give him up.

          “Nathan?”, she turned her neck across the pillow at this, hair covering an eye, her pale hands with bulging veins were too depleted of energy to remove. Her voice stole every ounce of strength from her dripping vocal chords.

          He managed a grin, rocking Nathan lightly in his arms, a nod nestled his chin.

          She sighed, “I am exhausted.”

          “Rest, Elizabeth, you must.”

          Her brows furrowed. “Richard, no”, he tilted his survey, dabbing the sweat from her forehead in bewilderment, “It’s something deeper, inherently present, it’s on the fibers of my skin...” her eyelids slinked downwards and she forced them open with difficulty, “...tendons, my eyes.”

          Still, her husband was perturbed, lacking any concept, pushing himself closer and farther onto the mattress till he grew to her side and her eyes seemed to avoid the infant he held in his arms.

          “Give all my hours of sleep to my child so that he may carry my strength, I am too worn by noise and silence… light and dark… hope and despair.”

          It was the sound of her voice that traveled into his blood like a thorn, vanishing directly into him to the core of who he always was. Breathing each other's dreams like air. Her eyes shut, face drifting into the pillow and he truly accepted the methods of her tongue, digesting her words. She seemed worn by the world, condensed into nothing that sleep could save.

 

**\----- III -----**

 

          It would be two weeks before she grew strength enough to rise her head. Three before she could hold the child who’d swiped from her cavern such eager desire enough. And in those weeks there was a fear as you’d naught feel no other; a concern every moment would be Nathan’s last and the wife under his vows would struggle for air in vain. Grief was digging graves in his heart where tombstones were commencing to rise from the parting grass. She was porcelain, the skin of her wrist a touch of ivory, the veins underneath little paths to unknown sea coves left undiscovered. Her eyelids were a shade of gray, faded from the earth's misadventures and all living life, he could not reach her where she was inconsolable. It cloaked him, hovering like a shadow above his humanity. She’ll survive in his heart where she already rested.

 

________________________

**June 29th, 1755**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- IV -----**

 

          Elizabeth held her son for the first time and love began, a tinge, a dash, consuming her; it entangles the body until she was devoured with this infatuation. She already had a flock of children when this one arrived, Samuel and John were already becoming scholars, respectively eight and seven years old by the time their brother came to be. They were young and Elizabeth rarely saw them before dinner, she’d scold them for the mud splattered on their ankles and the noise their shoes made when drenched. Joseph and Liza, five and four, did not quite understand they were not solely entitled to their mother’s affections any longer, the old maid Lydia wrangled them, they were both loud, pranksters those two and she couldn’t help a laugh at the image of her children and the mess they made attempting to shove unfinished dinner into their pockets. Then, there was Enoch; quiet with every hint of kindness and good in the world, brimming with intellect even nearing two, he was shy and motioned with pointed fingers to items he requested. She recognized that Enoch was the sole child who simply wished to entertain her in every way possible, catching her attention for her benefit and not his.

          The honeymoon phase settled and it was a relief for time to herself as her husband whisked Nathan away. She thought, perhaps, it would lessen the attraction. The less attached she became the easier it would be to let go. Nathan was not a strong child, lungs still weak and eyes only slits that allowed only a glance into a brilliant hidden spectacles lying below. He had not even vigor enough to cry, mouth bobbing open until she picked him up, stuffing him to her breast and the struggle parted. It was opposite, with every attempt not to grow adoration for his uncertain and ailing form she grew farther into cherishment for his refinement and slick scalp. She revered him as a month earlier she was able to slip from bed.

          There was a hand underneath her arm, propping her up, “There you go…”, it was an affable and present voice with every touch of sensibility. Her husband clutched her, cupping a palm to her slender waist.

          She should be grateful, she thought, but the careful tiptoeing around her frame was starting to entrench her with a growing build of irritation. “I’m not a child”, she murmured, releasing off his shoulder believing she’d done this so many times before. Richard tried to stop her, she dismissed him before taking a step and leading herself to the window she had not seen out of for so long a time by herself. The day was faint, thick charcoal clouds hung low in the sky though the heat was ever present like a suffocating fog. Her legs gave way as she grasped for a small  corner of the wall, tearing herself upwards without health to do so. The rolling hills before her home disappeared from grasp, head sinking from the window pane and she expected to collide to the floorboards, unable to catch herself.

          Two arms tugged her upright just as her skull neared contact with the flooring. “Elizabeth”, Richard cried, lifting her into his arms and leading her back to the bed where she collapsed. Hot tears began to fill her eyes, digging her nails into her hair and tilting her head forward. _Would I ever become well again?_ This terror trickled into a wave up her spine and made her shoulders shudder in panic as ice gripped her heart in the most painful places, the bones of it all. She recollected everything that had brought her here and fought temptation to blame that… child. “Elizabeth?”

          His soothing and coaxing vocals caused her to tip her head up to meet his gaze. There was sympathy there as if only pain defined her. “I wish just to see the earth,” she was desperate, sick of being confined to a bed and it was starting to be the only thing she knew, steadily becoming crazy upon the very idea of it.

          Her husband did not coddle her as one would a child. He reached an arm down, transferring strength enough for her to stand to the elements, “Hold me now and you can walk across the years.”

          The next day he shuffled the bed to brim the window where she could follow the setting sun as it flashed across the bed with colors only matched in a piece of artistry.

 

**\----- IV -----**

 

          She transferred her hurricanes into his heart, his soul was a starlit sea, giving her mind to him as meteors. Everyone will wish one day to learn the names of his tides, there is nothing but nature echoing from within. He was lightning bolt, biting back on thunder. She gave him the world to carry within and his life would be too short for loathing, she figured, the storms beneath his skin.

 

______________________

**August 13th, 1755**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- V -----**

 

          Nathan was able to widen his eyes and reach for her hand when he was nearing two months old. By then, power pulsated from her muscles and she regained a hold across her household. Lydia did ask occasionally if she would like to rest, and she’d reach aged hands to grab the baby in her arms but she hesitated, demurring away from this. A part of her worried if she let him go she would truly do as what was expected. Enoch clung to her leg and could not be beckoned from his mother’s side, slipping behind her and peaking a head out from behind her as if she was a shield. She ran a hand over the top of his copper locks and brushing the bangs out of his eyes.

          Nathan appeared to be getting better, as it appeared, and Elizabeth did not have to bite on fear every moment she heard a cough resound from his tiny mouth. He cried when anyone else attempted to hold him, let out a piercing shriek that she wanted to guard her ears from. Richard was a little dismayed at this but quickly settled on sight instead. Her child's were like powdered corn flower made from different fabric of the skies. There was an ache for freedom that twinkled there and he enjoyed times where he was nestled in his mother’s lap.

          And this perfect little heaven did not last, it seems. Nathan ailed, his tiny form trembling underneath the sheets of his cradle with flushed cheeks and a horrifying sound blaring from his lungs that brought tears of fear to her eyes. She wondered if the child would ever survive and thought every time she saw a sunset it made be his last. More often it was the revelation that she’d held this tiny being within her for eight months, felt him growing every day and experienced all of his movements. He was a pretty child, glowing with youth, flowed across his features. Elizabeth struggled through the things she did not comprehend, everything larger than herself and this life.

 

____________________

**October 21st, 1755**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- VI -----**

 

          Her favorite thing was when for a short eternity, Nathan’s lungs cleared and breathing was not a trivial thing any longer. She enjoyed the days where she could rock him in her lap on the porch, watching her husband, bent in the sweltering heat against a never ending summer. Occasionally he’ll catch her gaze and lower the rim of his hat to her, she giggled, grasping Nathan’s hand and waving it back mockingly. He was a happy child, she feared too much allowing him to reside in his own room with Enoch, he stayed in her bed and she watched his nose twitch as he slept.

          Samuel’s birthday arrived in October and Nathan seemed almost glad to draw the attention off of himself for a little while. That evening she allowed the now nine year old to stay out past dark though she worried as she watched him in the yard and bounced her newest edition around her chest. A chill from oncoming autumn whistled the tree branched until they scraped against the windows and set the mood. She tucked Samuel into bed in the room he shared with John and Enoch after their evening prayers. Enoch was already asleep, drifting into his pillow but Samuel sat up in bed blinking up at her with the largest doe eyes.

          “Could you tell me one of your stories, Mama?”, he asked and his voice was convincing as if trying to draw her in in some sort of manipulative way.

          Elizabeth sighed, flashing an off putting smile to set a tone and seating herself at the edge of their bed, pulling the blanket closer to their chins. It did not take much convincing for her to speak, she enjoyed these times where she could foster her own creativity.

          “Have you heard of children’s hour?”

 

**\----- VII -----**

 

          Long ago she lost that fear of being wrong, and perhaps it was why she lived a creative life. Words loved to swarm within her like a lyrical sea where she drowned in aspirations. When her boys were asleep she peered into the bedroom of Liza and headed back to her bed, Nathan was already asleep in her arms where she nestled him into the pillows and he was as a light as a feather drifting in a pocket of air. Richard came in soon after, lingering in the doorstop where she met his eyes before he tumbled into bed like aching bricks. She traced lines across his chest and assured him closer. This was when they drank in silence in the drifting night. Their love was soft and silky lavender that flooded her senses. It was delicate, it was comforting with every breath of intention, twisting with devotion. His fingers looped through her hair as they fell asleep.

 

_____________________

**November 10th, 1755**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- VIII -----**

 

          Her warm breath now hung low in the air with the oncoming and cryptid winter crossing swords with her hope of an extended summer. The chill of early November cut to her center and she bundled Nathan up warmer as they walked their grounds. Usually Enoch tagged along behind, running after on shaky legs and tugging on the end of her petticoat to keep in time. Though it was rare, she did enjoy those days when she was not alone with a still growing infant and she led an army. Liza usually requested her hand and Joseph enjoyed kicking rocks at her. She was tough, she never cried, lurching around and firing straight back. Children will be children. Enoch blinked a lot, she recalled taking in lather but she knew the hidden intellect underneath. His eyes were attempting to comprehend as much as he could.

          Life couldn’t be better, this she truly believed without hint of sarcasm. Nathan’s days of illness had passed and he breathed with ease. A flock of silvery blonde hair was beginning to grow on his cranium, it looked so much like gold but she knew how rich she was regardless of fortune. Richard joined occasionally on these walks when work did not persist, looping her around the arm, places where the leafless branches hid the greatest beauty underneath all of the colors. Maybe it was a metaphor, some hid the greatest beauties underneath as butterflies cannot see the beauty of their own wings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> \- Coventry, Connecticut is where Nathan Hale was born.  
> \- Richard Hale is Nathan Hale's father.  
> \- The dialogue between Richard Hale and the nurse is actual dialogue that did occur in this setting. Their movements and him speaking to his workers also happened.  
> \- Nathan Hale was expected to live because he was born premature by a month or less.  
> \- As a child, Nathan Hale was rather sickly.  
> \- Elizabeth Hale is Nathan Hale's mother.  
> \- At the time of his birth, Nathan Hale had five older siblings: Samuel (born in May 1747), John (born in October 1748), Joseph (born in March 1750), Elizabeth "Liza" born in January 1751 and Enoch (born in October 1753). Nathan will have six more siblings after his birth.  
> \- The sibling Nathan was the closest to was always Enoch who he would later go to college with.  
> \- Lydia was actually the name of a Hale house servant.  
> -


	4. Chapter Four | Protective Memoir

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben knows his first memory and Nathan wants his mother to stop being so protective.

**September 18th, 1757**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          Though flowers wilt, the memory of their beauty lives on even while the sweet scent is gone. That was how Ben saw his mother, but his eyes were the first to forget, he remembered her voice until his ears forgot this too. The memories faded away as he replaced them with others, forgotten, stored away; his mother was different, even as these thoughts are pushed aside, they are safe so he may remember them another day. That was that, Ben finds his first memory and draws it occasionally from this place of keep, replays it behind in his wandering skull so that he may bare witness to it all. The stars of the past find their way through the infinite array of long forgotten visions, reminds him of all the songs they used to sing under the fading sky lights.

          There were times before, of course, it was a blur, a flicker there as if he gently discovered hidden coves of his own mind he’d never recalled before. But this, this was the first. Everything began there, looming into focus, startling occasionally to know it as if through fine crystal. There was irony in life, it being the greatest fear to forget yet it is certain fate. There will one day be nobody left to speak the story of it all. Perishing that there will only be the burn and not one to remember the ember.

          There, the years pass, the days wink and flutter by, steadily to where they could only catch the sensation of it all. His mother gave birth to a third son whom was named Samuel in those years. There is only a beam of witnessing the infant’s countenance for the first time, he remembered thinking pudgy it was. Everything senses as it did a century ago, and William was kind, Ben felt like a mystery and Samuel was lively, a bright sensible delight that brightened the mood of anyone. Skin stretching over growing bones as dawn across the heavens where one painted the beginning of a certain end. They were open, they were sure and that was what allowed his two brothers not to become an illusion; Ben felt nestled perfectly in the center of built upon secrecy, discovering even at a young age he’d learned to build castle walls around himself without defences.

          In the closure of another summer, Mama was full in pregnancy with another little child. This child was different, seeping like an urn all of life from her. She looked divergent, enlarged and waddling like a duck around their home, her dress so extended he enjoyed hiding underneath the swooping cloth. She gained life enough to leave the house one day, dragging all of her charges with her. William stalked ahead, sleeves ruffled up to his elbows, a stick clenched in hand, smacking the trees as he trotted by, they had argued over this same branch a few minutes ago. Samuel, still on shaky footing held onto her left hand while Ben grasped her right, not growing impatient at their slow pace. He enjoyed the walks with his mother, more so when there was nobody else and the only sounds were the birds above an occasional rustle from skeletal trees. Every so often, he’d drag a hand up to swat the cinnamon curls that were hanging in his eyes. The heat clung to his skin like thick sap that suffocated his collar. Mama was bent like a peddler, from the weight in her tummy, he presumed. Weeks of remaining in home was insisting a toll upon her and perhaps she regretted her stubborn ambition that tossed herself to the limit. She was due in a few weeks, this baby smaller than the rest, pressing her belly out less farther.

          The group were only a few paces from the home when he experienced a grip of iron clenching his palm, nails digging into his fragile skin. Samuel yelped, tugging his hand away and stepping back. Ben did not, he blinked several times as his mother paled like the milk of a thousand blizzards. His eyes fell upon her knuckles, the bone underneath protruding through the pale skin of her hand, she lurched, lips parting into an open stance. There his mother stumbled, stuck and transfixed in some type of unexplainable agony. The breath caught in her throat, fear gripped him as it never had, it was a silent agony, unlike when Samuel stuck his palm against a burning log. Her abdomen seemed to be shifting, her ankles buckled as if something was pressing her to the ground and their laced fingers fell apart. Her eyes shut, squeezing the lids tightly, teeth biting upon her front lip with a fierce intensity.

          Tension bounded him, fear of meaningless and absurdity. Unsure of what to communicate and even his hands were at a lost. She was in the dirt, keeled over and Ben could only consider how small she appeared, he rose above but then again, he was always a tall child. From where William was past them, he paused in his step, curving back and their eyes met for a little uncertainty and confusion. He could only nictate through partialities of what was occurring, straining his eyes and stirring everything in his mind. The sun glimmered through the parted trees created tiny flecks of light that sprinkled the ground like fragments of the brightest jewels.

          Mama’s back faltered where she was restraining herself, “William,” she cried out, words masked by the tight clench of her jaw and her voice sounding like it had not been used in many decades, “I need you-”, she swallowed, the column of her throat jutting, “We’re not far from home, get Papa.” The last part admitted like a pant, the sweltering heat composing itself into larger damage.

          The six year old could only blink back with large teal eyes, lost, absent, tiny shoulders seizing up to his ears, holding the weight of a million ruminations a top on his shoulders. As if to reason with the pain that transformed her, he stepped forward, “Mama-”

          Mama flinched, a surge of agony jolting through her eardrums like the thwack of an axe was coming down upon her skull, “William go!”, she snapped and he opened his mouth to speak but held himself back, sprinting back down the path. Ben was astonished for only a moment at this burst, petrified to where he stood.

          That is when Samuel began to cry, and the shouts did naught to ease the pain pulsating through his mother. Shot from his trance, Ben landed a hand on his little brother’s, “Sammy, it’s alright”, he does not recollect how his voice came out however much he replays the words in his head. Mama eased herself out of discomfort long enough to hear Ben’s sharp voice ringing out. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead and he hesitated before wiping a tiny hand at it, beginning to work himself at her jacket, tearing it off of her. Samuel let out another piercing cry and Ben fought temptation to scold him, wrapping an arm around him, setting the year two year old beside him and patting his scalp. The women groaned, nausea fining the creases of her mouth firmly, covering it with her free hand.

          Her eyes remained pressed shut, Ben grabbed for her hand, squeezing it though he could barely fit around the folds of it all. Her eyes fell upon for just a second where the pain laying there in a helpless agony told stories that could never lie, picking at the piece of an impossible task. Heartsick, lost in a voice like thunder feeling her now through trembling fingers and panicking eyes hoping for any kind of relief. It was her dishonesty towards that pain that made her seem invincible.

          “Mama, you’ll be okay.”

          For some odd reason it felt safe and her hand on his felt softer but restrained, the binds extinguished as  the words of her son comforted her in a way. “Benjamin-”

          He shook his head with such a force he closed his eyes to safe them from the whipping of his locks. “You’ll be okay.”

          Those arms comforted him, finding a distraction that set her free in solace. She was filled with verses she did not even know the tiny child understood to converse. For the highs and lows, and moments between, mountains or valleys, rivers and streams, he said he’d be there with any melody. This was a journey where she landed where she belonged. She gathered strength enough to bend a quivering hand over Ben’s that soothed the fibers of her hair, “I love you.”

          He nodded, squeezing himself tighter into her side and just that, a life of remembrance began.

 

_______________________

**September 19th, 1757**

Setauket, New York

**\----- II -----**

 

          John was a healthy and a beautiful child. A existence shifted and Benjamin Tallmadge Sr saw that even though his first three sons looked near identical to their father, they all carried pieces of their mother. There was Billie, with ash blonde hair, a sense of kindness and respectability that could come from no other; Samuel with his mother’s hands the elegancy that accompanied them and the way they twisted as he spoke, ringing out as if screamed to the heavens with a deadly sense of humor and sociability; then, there was Ben, every instance he glimpsed up at him and he confirmed that he saw his wife; the deepest pools of truth and justice, a peculiar secrecy of love for little things that contributed to all the greatest beauties in the world. John was young and he saw every child was becoming more like their mother than he could imagine but he was young, submerged in youth and setting innocence.

          In times where he missed her, he would not have to pluck her from the stars because the spaces of his mind were growing too tight. He peered up from his desk, seeing her laying on the couch as real as in every sunset, every curve, crack and dip in color. He saw her in everything well and everything cloudy or wonderful. Every sweet dream laced with her scent. He opened his mouth to speak, closing it suddenly, and before she could notice his stare, he turned back in his chair, tapping the brim of his nose with his spectacles, losing motive to say all the short and meaningful things he wished to. 

          His love was raw.

 

_________________________

**October 3rd, 1759**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- III -----**

 

          Oh, but he doesn’t recall where it all started. There was not revelation, he cannot hunt far back into his recognition and detect when everything became transparent. Everything before seems shed in gloom as if under the thicket of a blanket, he cannot feel his way through the obscurity as one searches their brain. Nathan was in a constant battle, fighting with urges to recollect while his own self fought to forget. Maybe the days of constant joy seamlessly blended together as everyday folded into routine. He was a sickly child, frail bones and a hollow chest, ribs that stretched the expanse of his skin to the surface when he breathed. Perhaps, he does not remember his first years of his life because they were all the same. He’d silently and bemoan whenever his mother kept him from playing outside with his older brothers, there was constantly a child strapped to her hip it seemed, Richie arrived nearly two years prior, Billie two years after.

          As his mother wrapped a hand around his waist and kept him from exiting the home, outdoors just inches away from his eager fingertips, he observed his brothers through the window, a hand rested on his palm and bended elbows, sighs racking his body, he could almost imagine the wind against his face, autumn air swaddling him in the glowing air. There they were, Samuel, John, Joseph all together on the grass, laughs echoing back to him through glass and the yearning itched in his legs as he began to tap it up and down against the floor. She even allowed Liza outside, a girl, and not him.

          But, he was lying if he said he did not enjoy these advantages, his mother and him and just the sound of knives slicing or the clinking of utensils or the crackle of the spit above the fire with saliva growing in his mouth as he gazed towards the glistening meat in the hearth.

          “Nathan”, the boy snapped up, following his path towards his mother’s sideward glance and she placed greasy hands on her hips, “Make yourself useful, please.”

          He did not protest, sliding off the bench and wiping a droplet of sweat off his cheek from the heat of the fire, the smoke burning his eyes in the small brick room. Billie shuddered in his sleep and Mama tugged the sling farther on her shoulder as it began to tug there. As far as he knew, Richie was asleep upstairs, his tiny body in peace under a blanket from a long day. He suspected Enoch seated himself on the stairs outside, watching the others with little interest, that was the peculiar thing about his brother.

          Mama pivoted, exhausted, bags hung heavy over her graying eyelids and he wondered where the color had gone off to. “I need you to pull apart the cabbage”. He complied without coaxing, sliding a chair up to the counter and climbing up with little difficulty, getting to work on the chartreuse ball, ripping the leaves out and apart, adrift in thought for many minutes.

          “Mama?”

          She hummed in reply.

          He wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs, though his mother did not notice this, or she’d scold him for being too sloth to get out a cloth or rag. “When can I play outside?”, there was a gentle thrumming in his chest as if a spanning hole was formed at the base of his ribs and turning him inside out.

          His mother halted, glancing up, and boring at the wall, the knife in her hand glinted against the flames of the fire as it grew motionless. “Soon, Nathan”, it was vague and he was dismayed. He conjured up courage for little climax.

          “When?”, it slipped out of his mouth before he could restrain it.

          “Nathan--”

          His brows furrowed in the center of his forehead, sweat caking his forearms and the heat clinging to the fibers of his clothing, “My brothers can, Liza can, she’s a girl, and I cannot?”, he was brimming with questions, teething for answers, for any type of release.

          It was his mother’s turn to question, spinning around finally to face him and setting the sticky knife on the counter, patting her fingers against her dress to ease off. “Liza being a girl has not connection to the issue,” she blinked, raising a brow, she passed a glance to the window, “I am allowing her freedom while she still can have it.”

          “Can I not have mine?"

          He never understood what she meant but he does recall the snow beneath his feet and the ice that crawled across his wrists that winter, the frigid air in a current within his lungs. The days grew shorter but he had his freedom. The years grew shorter as well, slowly, quick, just a flicker of images as he looks back upon these years. He does know he saw Liza outdoors less. He slowed his tracks and peered to his house with a trail of smoke fluttering into a line across the expanse of the air as if his home was some sick, claustrophobic type of liberty.

          It began to wind down for Nathan, and he saw less of everyone it appeared. His mother with child so very often and sheltering his siblings away to aunt’s home frequently when she grew into pain. He never met his grandparents, however, his father spoke so often of them, most occasionally thrusting himself into fits of laugher of which he’d wipe tears away from. Why laugh over someone who caused you so much pain? Nathan mistook the tears for sadness and secretly that’s what they were, laughter, sadness and memories of them leaking from his eyes together. His father tried not to fill his heart with pain and sorrow, but commemorated everything tomorrow.  

          As his father stole away to his study more regularly, his mother grew more exhausted as more populated his home, he reminisces those times in the kitchen where they sat opposite each other cleaning vegetables off into a large pail of water on the kitchen floor. Samuel, John and Joseph were held up with studies and he knew their walk to the schoolhouse each day in the rise of the early morning and stole back another form of life from them; spirit. His sister’s childhood nickname fell, seldom Liza mistook his tongue, Eliza, more formal, older and no matter how beautiful it sounded he never dismissed his mother in the kitchen that evening years ago. He wondered for many a time after that what she meant, while now, as he peeks into the kitchen he knows exactly what she spelt out to him.

          It can be that’s why he knows Enoch the best, his true dearest friend.

 

_________________________

**November 9th, 1761**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- IV -----**

 

          By the time he was six, meager and tall all at the same time, he worked shirtless with his father’s workers in the fields. He scrubbed the dirt out from his nails every evening before dinner until he implemented himself in his chair with Enoch on his right and his mother at the other end on his left. She slumped into her seat and their hands met. Through every childhood artifact he recalls her hands, the calloused knuckles and the rough palms, the bitten down hairs and only a ghosting semblance of how soft they used to be. There were bruises and tender places at the edges and the occasionally scrape on the surface. They dug in after his father finished dinner prayers. Sometimes they got a story out of him.         

          “Papa, would you tell us of granmama Sarah?”, Enoch tilted in his chair, smoothing out the potatoes on his plate before looking up to meet his eyes.

          Richard Hale smirked, “Again?”

          There was a chorale around the table as his siblings murmured in agreement and Nathan smiled, for it was the one time they truly connected was at night over their supper. Papa sighed, keeping his fork within his fingers but swallowing what was left in his mouth. “I believe your mother can tell it better,” he beamed across the table and his wife straightened her posture, respiring, weighed down, her abdomen was large.

          She sighed, gathering strength as her children turned towards her, meeting and eyeing the deep seeded bags underneath her eyelids. “It’s Autumn…” she breathed, as if she’d lost the power to continue and he felt a flinch of panic before she began once again, “The trees are skeletons rising from the earth without any life from past fallen leaves…” Nathan leaned forward, tension rising in his stomach with excitement, he’d heard this story so many times before and he never grew bored at the contents.

          “These were darkened times, Granpapa John and Granmama Sarah resided living in the town of Salem, the exact time a dense fog settled upon the town. The witch trials are, and were, naught to joke about, boys, naught at all.”

          Nathan took serious every word she dictated.

          “When the first of the ladies were grabbed from their homes, some still in their night gowns,”

          A giggle rose up in Richie’s throat, one which warranted Eliza to nudge him with her elbow sharply.

          “They were brought before the judge, a stern, ugly little man with black hateful eyes and a messy, slothful wig. Some of these women’s climbed up towards the scaffold with a noose around their necks,” she motioned a finger across her throat and Nathan felt a shiver trickle down his spine, leaning in farther as his chest pressed against the corner of the table.

          “There they met their deaths with tears quivering in their eyes, full of innocence in the face of treachery,” she sighed, provoking a sense of eerie depression to her children, rising her hands above her head. “A dangerous fever changed the entirety of the union. Here is where Granpapa enters, he was caught with the full lot of them, shouting fervently across a courtroom with the most awful salutations. That was until your own granmama was stolen from her own home.”

          A little shock broke their concentration, but she pressed a finger to her lips to shush them. They complied.

          “Granpapa was forced to defend Sarah in front of the entire court explaining why, he, now changed his mind over all the hung. They almost took his life too,” she rose a finger pointed to them, “he spoke to the crowd, calling heavily for peace, a sense of justice, until he too was thrown until a confined cell to await his own trial.” She paused, closing her eyes.

          “And then?”, Nathan inquired, although he already knew the answer.

          “Your great grandparents sat cooped in cells for close to a month before they were freed, who knows, perhaps your grandmother always had a bit of witch in her,” she smiled, looking towards who husband who returned the favor.

          Richard dropped his utensil onto his plate, causing a clatter which, adding to the wind howling at the windows causing all of the children to jump in their seats, Nathan gripped Enoch’s elbow before he was pushed off, breaking the concentrations. “I swear boys, I once saw your grandmama move a vase with mine own two eyes,” he squinted until his eyes looked only like two lead bullets yearning for light, they were just little slits like the closing of a cloudy night, charcoal, beedy and lurking from out of an eclipse. His childishness could could not help image all of the possibilities. Did he have magic within him too?

 

**\----- V -----**

 

          After dinner, he clambered into bed. Enoch, Richie and himself in a tiny room, sharing a bed with Enoch. He always remained awake even as the candle shine faded and his father asked if they have finished evening prayers. He shuttled his eyes, flexing his hands to keep himself live until he heard his mother patter up the stairs, landing at the hall.

          When she was outside of his door he whispered out to her through the opening, “Mama?”

          She peered in through doorway, face illuminated by the candle's flicker, he witnessed everything there, the sagging exhaustion below her eyes and her crave for sleep growing deeper every second, he wouldn’t keep her for an extension.

          “Goodnight, Nathan.”

          “Goodnight, Mama.”

          He twisted his back towards the wall, sitting up after her bedroom door closed, he completed his evening prayers, clasping his hands together, waiting as he always did for privacy.

          “Make Mama well again, provide her the strength, or the aide, she has forever been a vehement servant of yours, lord.”

          Nathan fell back into his pillow, falling asleep to Enoch’s breath against his neck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> \- The child Susannah Tallmadge is pregnant with is John Tallmadge who was Benjamin Tallmadge's third brother.   
> \- As I said before, Nathan Hale was a sickly child.   
> \- Nathan Hale had six older siblings (who I listed off in the previous chapter) and then by the time his narration starts he had two new siblings: Richard Hale (named after his father and born in February 1757) and Billie (born in April 1759).   
> \- Regarding why Richard Hale Jr is being called "Richie" is because I do not want to end up having many of you getting confused over the two Richards so Richard Jr is just Richie!  
> \- That is an actual story they used to tell around the dinner table was the story of Nathan's ancestors who were tried during the Salem witch trials.   
> \- By 1761, which is Nathan's second part of narration, his mother, Elizabeth Hale was pregnant with twins.


	5. Chapter Five | Leafless Lavender

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben meets Abraham Woodhull and Nathan experiences first loss.

**January 18th, 1763**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          _These woods are mine_ , he thinks every time, and every time, they are his. He does not command them, he believes, in truth they command him. There is the frigid winter air numbing his fingers begging him to go indoors and there is the melting snow that is preparing to freeze the soles of his feet. Yet, when Ben regards back at this forest before heading towards home, the trees are like bony arms, beckoning him back once again. From his studies there is freedom in the evening when the sun sets, glazing the icicles in a homely glow of pastel. He’s invented a residence for himself there, he knows, and he appreciates perfectly well how the fridgid river water feels against his fingers, bitter, numbing and almost biting at his flesh. He parts home with raw fingers, chattering teeth and a strange sadness you do not expect leading up the porch steps to your own home.

          Ben studies the rippling water as he observed through Autumn days how the bank widened and the water climbed higher and higher. The river cannot be more than a half mile from his house. He’d taken that path before, every time it felt varied as though in different shoes, every day there was something new. Ben concludes nobody will learn these paths he’s wandered better than he has. Fixed by the river bank, he blows warm air on his stiff fingers, blinking the snow from his lashes and breathing in the air; it fills up his lungs to the brim, he is apart of it now, and it is a part of him.

          It did not take long for another child to be born in the Tallmadge household. Time did not take away the distinguishment between parent and child. There he was, no longer settled perfectly in the middle. William was his mother’s son, this was not difficult to tell, at dinner, he always sat by her side. Samuel cared for nobody thus far, anyone could notice, he was just a child who cared for other children. Isaac was only a toddler, bright milky eyed and clasping silver linings from clouds in his head, a perfect round little nose and lilac lips, fuchsia as pulled flesh; he was beautiful, with clamored buttermilk hair and a sensible laugh. There was John, and Ben loved all of his brothers--there was no doubt--but when the weather frightens a child or the winter moon casts frightful shadows for the imagination, Ben will awake the next morning with John nestled and arms around his neck underneath the sheets. It was unfair to say he cared for him the most, but he did. He fell for the calm nature of him, the reticence and the _silence_. John and Isaac were perfect semblances of their mother; William, Samuel and, himself all their father.

          Ben can remember the instances at the household gatherings of Judge Woodhull where his father, with a hand tucked uniform behind his back, gathered his children before the man. In every scene, his father, of all his brothers, grasped his own shoulder and tugged him in front of them, managing a smile in the midst of doing so as he pushed him forward to present him.

          “These are my children”, he gestured to them where his mother was resting Isaac at her hip and William at her side. Ben could sense it was coming as the buff of his coat were grasped, tugged into the front of the procession, “and of course, my son, Benjamin.” Another grin, a pat on his dorsal, Ben feeling as if he was being pounded into the floorboards.

          Judge Woodhull had a graying brow and an almost sinister expression that caused Ben wrap his hands behind his back, shuffling his feet and toying with the ends of his sleeves. Woodhull shifted the glass in his hand and the liquid sloshed messily around. “College, haven't you been thinking of sort, for such a protege in academia?.” The older man pointed to him and his brother rapidly grew bored with the lack of attention and dispersed among themselves, only John remained beside him, though he did not notice this until after his palms stopped sweating.

          “Of course,” his father patted the crown of his head this time and Ben finally tipped his chin up and met the expression of the man before. He examined the worry lines on his cheeks and the wrinkles like impressed scars across his forehead. Judge Woodhull had large ears, but being such a _protege in academia_ , he did not mention this and straightened his posture instead to distract himself from his personal dissecting.

          “New York City? Or….”, the figure did not conclude the sentence as if attempting to impregnate the air with an aura of mystery with his thick wrinkled fingers wrapped around his china.

          “Yale,” his father grimaced, nodding his head gently and smoothing back his hair with his palm, “I am an alumi.”

          Judge Woodhull grunted, “My sons,” he pointed across the large room at an older boy, quite short for his age and another standing beside him, they appeared to be fourteen and sixteen to him, Ben thought. “Glimpsing towards future prospects, I envision Adam and Richard at King’s College.”

          Ben felt his father simper above him in retraction, with the small glow that pronounced every word enthusiastically, “‘Tis a notable institution.”

          “I am not worried for them,” Woodhull managed a slice of humanity as he glanced across the room at his sons, engaged in a conversation two older girls. The smile then faded faster than it had ever witnessed the light. “My youngest, however…”, he did not continue again and Ben saw his eyes flicker to the corner where this time he truly cared to follow. He recognized the boy, if he dare call him that, in this instance, he was in fact “the boy”. “Abraham simply does not catch the rhetoric as my eldest do, he is... _wandered_.” Ben believed they were his, he was a wanderer.

          Abraham Woodhull was all skin and bones, when he stretched his wrist to reach across for an item, you could see the ivory from underneath bones stretching through the skin. His carob hair was greasy, untidy and his clothes were uneven, hanging loosely off of his stick like frame. He had crow eyes that blinked with no emotion as if he were hiding it all within them in some secretive sector of himself. Ben knows he's seen him in town before, and every Sunday in church. Strange, perhaps, he never knew his name before then, maybe it was not his business meddling with boys three years older than himself, being only a boy of nine years old.

          Through all of his, when Judge Woodhull excused himself to mingle with his other guests, Ben hesitated before approaching the wanderer, slinking along the dim wallpaper barricades with spiraling floral patterns and aged floorboards that creaked underneath his step. His father disbanded him and he wondered why his father chose him of all his brothers. He knew he was brighter, this was no secret, that he found solace within the pages of a book where new worlds were within his grasp, among his own stars and planets he could create. There he could be anyone that he wished, a beast in a forest, a breath of wind on a lover’s cheek, a French prince for all he cared.

          He watched the boy in the corner without attention paid towards him slink his way along the walls as though camouflaging himself and slipping into the kitchen. Ben gulped hesitantly before following, quieting his step and not peering back over his shoulder at the gloomy lit room. He heeded the chime of a narrow door in the far kitchen open, then shut quietly in its frame, there were footsteps on the back porch. He pursued them, twisting around the counter and nearly tripping on the raised bricks of the fireplace. He did not worry if his father would catch him or if Woodhull’s looming thick skin would scold him with a slap on the wrist. He pulled the door open, out into the night air. What was he expecting?

          His breath hung like steam in the breeze, moonlight scattering across the porch and he shut the door just as blissfully in it’s frame, turning back around. Abraham was standing there when he meandered around, features illuminated by the evening, catching across his caved cheekbones in such a way that a scream rose in his throat, jumping in surprise. A hand pressed to his mouth and he was forced to gulp the shock away. The hand fell from his mouth and he parted his lips, the winter air beginning to nip at his ears.

          The younger Woodhull appeared to be confused, “Tallmadge, what do you think you’re doing?” Ben couldn’t think of an answer, _Tallmadge?_ , he thrust out his chest, an attempt to make himself look larger than life even if the older boy was his height. “Before you ask,” Abraham stepped back, “My father is Judge, I know everyone’s name.”

          Ben nodded in this answer, blinking several times absently.

          Abraham stepped off the stairs onto the grass, the shadowed fern eating at the light, he swiveled around when he did not hear footfall to accompany him. “You’ve made it thus far, Tallmadge, aren’t you coming?”

_You don’t have to tell me twice._

 

__________________

 

          They made a deserted owl’s hole in tree trunk their target, pebbles clattering against the bark, most times he made it in, Abraham unfortunately did not though he did not seem to care. No matter how indifferent the son seemed to his Judge father, Ben could see it, a sense of command, stealing the reigns of control, he liked it more subtle in Abe. The rock froze to his fingers and he brushed the frost off it before lunging it at the ebonizing oval. “Your brothers are interesting.”

          Abe shrugged his shoulders, taking his turn, “They foster intelligence--not spirit if I may contribute. What makes them so interesting?”

          Ben did not know how to retaliate, “It was mostly an attempt at conversation between us, initiate flattery?”

          Abe laughed as a stone tumbled against the rim of the crater and sank into the snow, “An attempt at flattery should _not_ involve my brothers.” Ben felt his ears turn to merlot, “Don’t fret, I am nothing as they are.”

          “What makes you say that?”

          For some odd reason, this made Abe stop, pausing his step in thought and he choosing not to answer. “I hear you are the protege of your family?”, he was poking fun, no question, as he placed a hand on his hip but Ben could not tell his expression through the murky air.

          “Am I?”

          “I have some experience, I can tell,” Abe mentioned, and Ben saw his mouth shift into a smile, glowing static against the starlight parting through the tops of few trees. A navy sky twinkled down at them in these scene.

          “With being a protege?”, it was his turn to mock.

          Abe waved his away, closing his mouth, “I have and never will be the sort.”

          There fell the silence and Abe quickly grew bored, slumping to the ground and resting his bony elbows on his knees. Those elbows were like daggers, sharp as his denying wit. “I hear your father wishes to send you to King’s College.” A little flattery may get a man through great fatigue.

          Abe lifted his head, his loose hair hanging in his eyes, “I was not made for a College, I am not constructed for studies or cut for courtrooms. Tell me, Tallmadge” he stood up, brushing off his hands, “Couldn’t intelligence be measured in how well I have memorized the places we are,” he lifted his arms, gesturing to the sky, widening them until he counted the entire forest. “If you were to implement my kinsmen into these very woods, would Latin truly save them?”

          Ben kept still.

          Abe drew closer, “Would mathematics teach them which path leads home or which stones to follow?” He was weaving a spider’s web of words that Ben became trapped within.

          “There is life here, Tallmadge,” his hands were pulled to Abe’s chest, “listen.”

          There was reserve, an occasional rustle from lonely branches and Ben swore he understood every time he noticed a soft draw in of energy before the release. For the night, he did not notice he had peeled open his eyelid and he could vaguely sense Abe’s pulse thrumming at his fingertips delicately. It was calm. Every shadow did not press him with fear, snapping twigs were no enemy. He could scarcely harken the river in the distance and the frigid air against his palms was the water, swimming against his skin like fish.

          “There it is…”

          Abe was grinning when he fully patented his eyes, stepping back, pretending it had never occurred, bending over and brushing his fingers over the dirt before he tugged at a pebble, tossing it in the air and nearly dropping it back into the soil in his clumsiness. “There are entire forests full of the most incredible flowers, plants, trees. I sometimes wonder why my father chooses to nurture the largest trees; they’re not all the same.”

          Ben found a voice in a place where his vocals could not move, “Next time, ask your father if he knows every droplet of the ever changing seas, or a river’s ever changing bends.”

          Abe smiled again, it glowed through the obscurity, “Oh, Tallmadge, my father judges currents without knowing the source.”

 

_____________________

**February 22nd, 1763**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- III -----**

 

          It was nearly two years later, still, the emptiness had never recovered. Nathan was only six then, his mother only thirty-two years more; what was the difference? After the long months, maybe to him, there was a bend, sunlight pooling now lazily into the home, there was life in the wallpaper and chandeliers. There was joy at the dinner table and, his mother, though she hesitated to laugh, admitted a resounding smile. He recollects how much larger his mother’s stomach was this time, and he did not understand, he was naive and he was young.

_His father placed him on his knee and Nathan glared up into his face, “You’re mother is having twins, Nathan.”_

_His brows twisted, “What’s that, Papa?”_

_“You’ll be having two new siblings instead of just one.”_

          He accepted this until that December morning when his mother was carried upstairs and it was no mystery to him what was to occur. There would be another seat at the table, another voice in the house, a new soul within the walls; and, the smoky color would travel farther up his mother’s scalp; there would be another wrinkle at the corner of her eye, there would be one less hour of sleep and laughter ceasing to a shut as life weaving down into old age. The night before he was sent off to the home of an aunt that fateful day and the carriage wheels began their tumble down the walkway with his siblings all pushed together in the cart’s interior, his mother told him a story. This, was nothing new. Nathan admired her imagination, the imagery, the _soul_ , most of all: he saw for once the flicker of passion--of _life_ \--in her eyes; oh, how he’d give anything for her to have life in her body once again.

          Everything in that carriage ride is vague, numb and he does not treasure it. He does recall his palm tucked underneath his chin and his eyes following the upstairs window of his mother’s bedroom before it disappeared from view. His aunt slapped his knee with her fan, bringing him to attention and he faced her.

          “Your mother is going to be alright, Nathan.”

          Nathan sighed, turned back to the glass and examined the countryside as it rolled by and he does not remember any of it. Though his Aunt attempted to reassure him, he could not help the prayers the passed his lips, or Enoch pressing his fingers into the bed of his wrist, wringing at the veins in his own sense of assurance. Samuel, the oldest, barked at Richie for getting mud on stockings, Richie of course began to cry, waking Billie who stirred from their Aunt’s lap. John and Joseph hip and hip against one another grumbled in discontentment at the scene. Nathan was lost in his thoughts, he prayed again for his mother’s health, taking guidance from her words. He noticed Eliza was not with them; there was more room; but another lost life.

          Even before they returned to the house, Nathan felt heavy, disinterested in what caught his older brother’s eyes. He remained with Enoch, picking leather books from their Aunt’s bookshelves, struggling with the dialect until Enoch was save him from floundering, tripping over a syllable, correcting his lisp on the Ls. They returned a few days later, his Aunt passing Billie off to his father as Papa did not stop them from clamoring to their mother’s side. Nathan entered her bedroom last, crawled up the stairs slower, staying at the corner of the room until he heard his mother call for him from the bed.

          “Nathan? Where’s my Nathan?”

          He came off of the wall, gathering at his mother’s side once again. She looked miserable, hand trembling when she brushed his daffodil locks back with her fingers as a comb. He only knew later that she took hope from him, hope from his struggle as off as it sounded. Nathan was a sickly child, he saw the swaddled infants at his mother’s side on their half of the bed. Careful not to damage her, he joined her on the bed, petting her hair gently.

          “Mama, have you named them?”

          She hummed, “Them?”

          He furrowed his brow, “My brothers, Mama.”

          “Davy and Johnny,” she grinned lightly though her eyes were beginning to shut their lids in exhaustion. “Would you like to hold one of your brothers, Nathan?” Brimming with this, livid where he sat, he agreed, nodding enthusiastically his little head and his mother slipped gently her arms like a dancer underneath one of the infant’s backs, they cooed as she lifted them into Nathan’s arms. “Hold the neck… there you go.”

          He stared down at the child, one of his new brother, resting in his arms, he felt strange holding life in his own grasp knowing he was once this small. He peered down into the infant’s face, glee twinkling in his eyes like a night sky. “Who’s this?”

          His mother sat elevated, propping herself up and Nathan saw a flash of agony pinch the creases of her youthful visage, “That is Johnny.”

          “John-ny”, he sounded it out and beamed again, studying the baby’s face, he was an ugly child he noticed, resembled a little worm if he was being completely honest. All of the children he’d seen so far were chubby with full peach toned cheeks and wet lips. He cared for them, he knew, no matter how ugly they were, they seemed to grow up fine, he knew from seeing Billie and Richie. “Where’s Davy?”, the names felt foreign on his tongue as if transcribing some ancient text.

          She placed a finger to the center of her lips, “he’s sleeping.” She gestured to the other side of her where Nathan gaped over the mound made by his mother’s hips underneath the covers. He saw a bit of a face, Davy was a pretty baby he figured from what little he saw. The weight in his lungs disappeared, carrying in them breath from four worrisome days. His mother picked Johnny from his arms, a little sad to let him go. She asked him of their visit, of things he did not care of, of the snow covered lavender buds on the lawn, of leafless apple trees and how much snow there was outside; those she cared of.

          “Johnny is just like you were Nathan.”

          He perked up.

          “He will survive just as you did, he carries the strength you have.”

 _Strength only_ **_you_ ** _could've given me, Mama._

          He allowed his mother to rest soon after, he truly believed there was life once again in her eyes, brimming with dangerous hope. It was unfair that lives are just a gasp for air. A tragedy, leaving so much more to know, just when you’ve learned when it is all about. His lungs were full, he must now breathe out, forget all of his anxieties. Johnny never got the chance to use the strength he was given. Nathan was not the first to inquire, nor did he cry. He recognizes only the silent shudder of Enoch’s back beside him in the middle of the afternoon. He was tempted to sooth him, run fingers through his copper hair and console him, but he did not. He lay on his back, observing the ceiling, expressionless, the sun changing times and the shadows there modified. When Richie approached him, blinking such innocent eyes up at him begging to know why Mama was crying or Papa was smashing glass downstairs, he tugged the covers over his head, tugging his knees up to his chest and grinding his teeth.

          It was late when his bedroom door creaked open, the hinges brushing the flooring and he hesitated to move the covers back from where they were covering his head. The footsteps were light, heavy, thin as drizzle but somber as thunder. It was faint outside, there was no glow in his room except the shine of his mother’s hair in window’s glass. He did not move, studying her figure emerge from the obscurity as the sun transforms behind clouds. Richie and Billie were fast asleep in the next bed over, but that was not the reason she had come. Mama eased herself on the mattress, Enoch did not move, asleep; it was late.

          Nathan did not protest as his mother wrapped her arms around his neck, holding him close to her chest and putting a leg over him to hold him in place. He did not move as her arm, twisting around his body, cradled him to her chest and she sobbed gently. His mother was clenching like an anchor keeping herself to the Earth. These knotted pasts and hearts scattered with thorns. If she had broken into screams, it would of told him the very same story, he knew. Something shattered. Her son did not move, frozen, unmoving as he felt a sadness burning into him, a sadness he wouldn’t ever have known; the pain of losing a child.

          They never had a funeral for Johnny, most moved past it as if he never existed, as if the child he felt in his very arms, _his brother_ , had not existed in the first place. Truthfully, Johnny went from constantly swimming among his thoughts to farther and farther in his memory. He witnesses him occasionally, in his reflections, remembers when he peered into those small features and saw his little nose twitch to new air.

          Nathan sighs and watches the days tick by, minutes and hours were scrolled as Davy began walking with a strange little frown on his lips. He sees his dead brother’s ghost, he knows his mother sees him too. A phantom in their imaginations.

          _We move on._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> \- Benjamin Tallmadge was the most intelligent of his brothers (it is one of the reasons he one was the only Tallmadge brother sent to Yale).   
> \- Richard Woodhull used to thrown these elaborate parties at his home that were rather elegant and invite select individuals in their town.   
> \- By this time, Benjamin Tallmadge's fourth and final brother had been born: Isaac (born February 1762).   
> \- Isaac Tallmadge actually did share the EXACT same birthday as his older brother Benjamin Tallmadge.   
> \- Richard Woodhull was a judge.   
> \- Regarding what Richard Woodhull is speaking of about King's College, it is because he sent all of his sons: Adam and Richard Jr to King's College.   
> \- Abraham Woodhull was the black sheep of his family but he also went to King's College later in life.   
> \- Abraham Woodhull and Benjamin Tallmadge got along really well throughout their lives, starting when they were children (they also lived SUPER close).   
> \- The older girls Adam Woodhull and Richard Jr Woodhull are speaking to are their two older sisters.   
> \- Nathan Hale's brother gave birth to twins (David and Jonathan) but tragically after only several days of life, Jonathan died very young.   
> \- David is referred to as Davy (when he gets older, and in later chapters, you'll see he gets referred to as David because he is older now).   
> -


	6. Chapter Six | Crimson Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben knows his little brother farther, Nathan gets a friend. 
> 
> In this chapter, Ben is nine and Nathan is recently eight.

**June 27th, 1763**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          It was routine by this point. Rise before the sun, wash up and then gather at the kitchen table for studies from his mother. Mama balanced Isaac on her hip, John seated on Ben’s left and Samuel across the table. Scene gathered. It was like this before his father returned with William in tow in the late afternoon and he took over for her. He enjoyed studies with his mother better for no particular reason. He had his freedom in the early evening when his father released him. Ben grabbed his coat underneath an elbow, tugging it over his arms as his pounded down the porch. There was only one person in his home who seemed to ever notice his absence.

          “Ben?”, John asked, following behind him as he rushed throughout their room, seating himself for only a second in a chair while he tugged his boots past his ankles.

          “Yes, John?”

          “Can I come?”

          It was like this every time he headed out. Ben looked up towards him, puffing out his cheeks as he managed to fit boots over his feet with effort. He stood up from the bed, crossing the room the door without a reply.

          John went after him as he went, “Please, Ben?”

          “Sorry, John”, the brother gave a sympathetic smile as he peeled down the stairs, passing John a tiny glance as he stood at the top of the stairwell. Slamming open the backdoor he stepped out into the cooling evening air, there was color in the woods again. He loved his brother but maybe he was jealous of sharing his location all with another. He traced his usual steps through the woods until he came to the river. He almost told the sun that he was glad that he was there and he wasn’t sure why. It was pleasant, the water level had lowered by this time but he still could not reach the other side just yet. The ground sunk beneath his footing when he stepped where the rain had saturated the soil. These woods were lovely, alluring, somber and profound. The only sounds were light wind whistling the shell of his ear and the occasional hum from his vocal chords as he sat, breathing in the air and shifting inside of himself.

          Perhaps next time he’ll invite John, he thinks, and every time, it is just a thought.

 

____________________

**August 24th, 1763**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- II -----**

 

          He’d be dreaming _peacefully_ before the hands awoke him every morning. Richard Hale’s rock shook his frame, and he trembled in reply, rolling from a deep sleep to the stream of a candle of illuminating his face. His father’s lips were soaked in the firelight as his eyelids longed for sleep.

          “Nathan, rise.” His father’s voice was louder in the morning but somewhat more gentle, there was not even a sliver of sunlight on the horizon. Pure darkness around him. The bed opposite his was unmoving, still with the bodies of his two younger brothers. Nathan pressed his face farther into the pillow and groaned mutedly. “Wake Enoch, don’t dawdle.” His father’s candle and melting wax stepped from the bed and towards the bedroom door, and his turned around to make sure his children were doing what he asked. Nathan made an effort to blink the exhaustion away. “Nathan!”, his father snapped.

_Alright, alright._

          There was a cool draft from the window and he shoved Enoch (who was still asleep) before slinking from their bed on shaky footing. Enoch only rose when Nathan ripped the covers from his body and his spine curled into a ball. Enoch slipped from bed minutes later, grunting and rubbing a hand across his face. Nathan reluctantly made the bed when his older brother protested. The bed with Richie and Billie moved and the younger rubbed his eyes, sitting up and yawning.

          “Nathan?”

          “Shh”, he stepped over, working Billie's head back onto the pillow, quieting him and plucking the blankets up to his chin. “Go back to sleep.” And his brother did without trouble.

          They’d leave the house and walk the three miles to the home of the Master John Davenport every morning. This, the many of firsts, was accompanied with a churn of anxiety in his stomach but he swallowed it down like medicine and pushed it aside. When they dressed and headed down the steps, Eliza was awake, passing them apples to tide them through the day and half a loaf of bread. How many times would it take before they learned to spare the food till the afternoon? Too many, it seems.

          Nathan only saw his weakened mother one time before he headed off. On the first day she pushed the hair out of his eyes, redressed his uneven juniper ribbon and smoothed the creases in the shoulders of clothing much too small for his size. He was taller than his older brothers had been at this age. She kissed his forehead softly.

          “Stay safe, please.”

          He acknowledged her, slipping a bag over his back and pursued Enoch and Joseph out of the door. The lock clicked behind them, the sun was just beginning the rise, dazzling the valley in marvelous hues of beginning. A large breath of crisp morning air entered his lungs and he let it go. Joseph called to him, and he clamored off to his brothers who were already starting down the dusty path. Joseph was not used to being the oldest here, he was not used to Enoch and Nathan treading beside him to the wooden home. But by this time the older brothers that Joseph was used to accompanying had already started apprenticeships. As Nathan ponders it closer, he knows the only words he ever heard Joseph disclose on their long morning walks was to scold him for hitting dirt up as his kicked rocks that came in his way.

          Another thing Nathan realized on their long morning walks where Enoch swayed his feet in exhaustion and the cows in the pastures they passed were already grazing through the tall grass was how little he saw of John and Samuel now. He figured someday he would see less and less of Enoch too. Nathan strolled a little nearer at Enoch’s side at this thought. They neared the schoolhouse and Joseph separated from them. The tiny wooden structure was struggling with collapsing windows and loomed in front of him more as an object of his avoidance than his contribution, however, anything that would keep him from extended days under beating afternoon sun in his father’s farmland would do.

 

____________________

**September 2nd, 1763**

Setauket, New York

**\----- III -----**

 

          John must of ensued him quietly for miles Ben figures. It was another early evening, completed with his studies he treaded the half mile to his spot by the river, deciding, perhaps, this time he’ll take a swim. On queue, he wiped of sweat from his brow and collapsed by the bank. The sun shattered through the banana colored trees and he slipped his shoes off, setting them and their muddy soles by the lateral of the stream. He didn’t see that anyone was watching him until he began untucking his shirt from his waist. There was a snap, the crack of a dry branch under someone’s foot and he wheeling himself around. John didn’t make an attempt to conceal himself, cheeks turning to a punch and he rubbed a palm over his elbow.

          Silently, Ben groaned, annoyed, angry and furious all at the same time. “What do you think you’re doing here?”, he narrowed his brows, stepping through the baked leaves towards his younger brother who was busy coming up with an excuse.

          John tried to explain himself, “I-”

          Ben growled, the heat only setting him farther on edge. “Actually, do not answer,” he used a finger to push on John’s tiny shoulder, the impact pushing him back a little. He turned his back to calm himself. This was a breach, a break in his privacy, a shatter of himself, the secrecy and the special senses. He doesn’t wish anyone else to know of all the small pools only he knew of and of the puny crystal waves the lapped again the boundaries of mud. Ben ripped his shirt over his head, sighing at the air that surrounded him, bending down and cupping water into his hands before rubbing it across his chest to cool down. John was still there when he turned around, and Ben attempted to compose himself. “I told you not to follow me.”

          His younger brothers shuffled his feet and cramped his shoulders, “Sorry, Ben.”

          The rage exited him and his chest dropped. “You cannot find your way back, can you?”

          John shook his head, peppered cedar and lemon hair fluttering around his forehead.

          Again, Ben exhaled, wiping his palms on the side of his trousers. Yes, in that moment a minuscule morsel of sympathy grew for his brother and he knew why he’d disobeyed him, why he accompanied him without him knowing. What’s a five year old boy to do in the town such as this? Samuel and his goofy grin and reckless behavior brought him into contact with a swarming group of friends. William spent nearly all of his time with their father, vaguely studying and not caring for it in anyway shape or form.

          Ben began unbuttoning his pants and folded them on top of his shoes, “Would you like to join me for a swim?”

          The ecstasy he saw ignite in his brother’s face was as nothing he’d ever seen before on the countenance of another. They sat with droplets of water cloaking their skin and the scalding summer heat glistening off the sparkling orbs like a thousand glimmering jewels laid naked for the sun. Connected at the hips, shoving each other with laughter echoing off the boundaries of light around them. Those smiles he saw on his little brother’s visage created an essence, and he believed that if his being had touched him with joy far into his heart then he had lived once and truly made his mark.

          The woods had more life after this, they felt like kings at the commencement of something new; they were not only his.

 

____________________

**September 16th, 1763**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- IV -----**

 

          Nathan never envisioned meeting his first friend would involve a bloody nose and tears that were not his own, however, no one can control their fates it seems. Enoch scampered off with a group of older boys, a few of them already friends with Joseph. Joseph beckoned him near after they were let out, calling for him to trek the three miles back to their home. That time, Nathan decided to lie--something he was quite terrible at.

          “Master Davenport wishes to keep me longer,” the lies poured from his throat.

          Joseph raised a questioning brow, Nathan couldn’t help but think he stared as their father does in that occasion. “Did you get into trouble again, you rascal?”, his eyes revolved to menacing slits like a snake.

          Nathan shook his head, beginning to start back towards the schoolhouse porch, “I’ll see you at home, Joseph.”

          The young boy would be complacent to believe that his older brother truly believed him and he was somewhat proud of himself. Any punishment at home was better than the hush of a long walk home without Enoch. He remained on the schoolhouse porch until his brother’s figure slinked out of view around the bend of wooden gates. He breathed out, trailing down the porch steps and crossing the terrace. There was naught more painful to him than silence, words have consequences just at quietude does.

          Nathan had seen Asher Wright before, a raven haired, pear eyed boy with a cheeky smile, a walk that told you he means business and a quiver of his full, sooty eyebrows that gave him a goofy complexion. He sat at the back of the class and was constantly told to put his feet down and to stop whispering among other boys. Nathan never really paid attention to him, a few times the class snickered as the boy's palms were smacked with a large yardstick before the eyes of all of the students.

          It was a radiant day, warm sun and a cool breeze that brushed the beads of sweat on his neck. It wasn’t long before he began his walk back home, free to his own mind without the company of his brothers, his brain felt overgrown with too many reflections and ideas. A memory from childhood he’ll carry with him was the first time he saw his own blood. A mile and a half into his walk, a grove of apple trees were plotted, sprawling and sporadic across the grass. He enjoyed the sight of it all, the ripe merlot apples piercing the chartreuse above him like a canopy of colors. Lost in sight of everything he wasn’t expecting to be thrown to the ground mere seconds later.

          It was a voluminous crack of skull on skull, sensing the clouds empty his cranium, his back collided with the earth too in shock to register the pain in his forehead. The wind had been knocked out of him and he struggled for breath on the flattened dirt too spun to sit up properly while not knowing if he was asleep or dead. The edges of his vision turned a consuming greasy color and began to eat away at his vision. The fibers of his skin were on fire, even the current on his cheeks felt like a thousand needles pricking his sheath. A shadow loomed above him but he could not see it , blurred vision and his gasping for air that was not entering his lungs. He could not make out the face or any features of the figure who stole the sky from him, crowding it.

          “Oh my, oh my, oh my." Nathan heard it muttered a few times over and then he’s positive he heard a cuss but he could not move to respond: “Get up, please, get up, please." This was repeated over and his lips began to trickle with air. He groaned, blinking several times and bringing a hand to brush his chest where it was beginning to rise and fall once again in time with his breathing. “Oh thank god”, the boy looming above him remarked, crouching down beside him and peering almost curiously into his face. “Are you alright? Please be alright, my father will kill me!”

          Nathan was almost able to manage a laugh at this but could barely inch a corner of his lip into a smile or a smirk. He conjured up enough strength, and his gaze darted, perception flickering to the countenance of the boy above him. “Mine too.”

          The boy smiled, the gape in his teeth parting out through his pale, freckled lips. “Can you sit up?”

          At this, Nathan attempted to postulate himself, the world spun before him and he pressed fingertips to the lump forming on his forehead. He let out a moan as he touched the tender spot. He leaned an elbow on his knee, feeling rather nausea, glancing to his side, recognizing the lopsided grin, jet hair and confidence so large he could smell it in the air. “You’re Asher, aren’t you?”

          Another grin, “In the flesh!”

          Nathan did not try to stand up quite yet, though he was forced to a minute later when he found himself leaning over the bushes, stomach heaving and jolting as it emptied the contents of his stomach. Asher observed, grimacing and standing afar as if he may catch whatever he had (even though you couldn’t). His hand stuffed him against the trunk of an apple tree, abdomen quivering, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and glanced up at Asher.

          “You sure you’re alright?”

          A little exasperated, he ventured to collect his belongings which were scattered on the grass where he had been hit. “I never said I was.” He tugged up the string of his bag, crouching to place his books back into his sack, the weight heavier than usual. He simpered down at the back of his hand were blood was smeared. His nose was bleeding. The spots began to trickle rapidly onto the breast of his shirt. “My father really is going to have it at me now.”

          Asher giggled, bounding forward with a little concern. Enough manageable for a nine year old it seems. “I truly am sorry, Nathan.”

          The devil of the classroom knew his name, this surprised him a little but not enough to say words which might cause him to taste acid in his mouth. “How did I fall?”

          Asher began to pry at the buttons of his coat, cocking his head and chewing on his inner cheek, “I thought it would be funny to swing from that tree.” His finger pointed to a thick branch of an apple tree that Nathan had no bother to examine.

          “Your sense of humor is rather sick.”

          The boy mockingly chattered his teeth, “Can I walk you home?”

          “Why? So that you can provide me with another blow. I do not believe that will occur; I won’t let it.”

          Perhaps thrown at Nathan’s non-persistence to be near him, around him or surround him and his “godly” presence, he attained a curiosity in him. “Follow me,” and he commenced to walk away without a second word.

          However, Nathan was not having it in this time or place. “Hold on just a minute, if you insist to accompany _me_ home, you are following _me_ ,” he gestured to himself, standing his ground, pressing fingers to his nose to interrupt the steady stream of blood which masked his voice.

          Asher passed another trade mark grin and complied with argue.

 

____________________

 

          It was nearly six at night when his home, down the path began to succumb into view. Asher tried to strike up conversation where he believed he could start one, which, unsurprisingly, was rather often. Nathan, however, was past the reach of annoyance and settled on acceptance. He indulged his new friend as he covered his nose and stumbled with a trip in his step from vertigo.

          “Isn’t this far from your own home?”, he asked, some of the few words he spoke in the middle of Asher’s non-stop ramblings where little of the words he spoke mattered in the slightest.

          Asher shook his head, closed eyes and tugging at his hair tie to keep it in place where it was beginning to slip. He cast away, bringing a finger to the fence that lined the left of them, pointing with a digit past to a structural slate home across the field, covered by giant swooping trees that canvassed the scene. “That’s where I live.” Nathan had seen the home from a carriage seat and on his few walks to school so far but he hadn’t thought twice of it ever.

          “What's that on your neck?”, Asher once again broke the silence.

          Nathan slapped a hand on his neck, feeling for a bump, the mole that was always there and what he was motioning to. “It’s always been there.”

          Asher grimaced again, pulling his lips down, “that’s bad luck, you know.”

          Before Nathan could ask, or even open his mouth, Asher was talking again, eyes flashing occasionally to the large mole on the left side of his neck. They parted ways at a crossroad, one path leading up the steps of his home and another down a long and winding stretch of land to Asher’s home.

          “How is it I never see you in the morning?”

          “I don’t walk this way,” Asher shrugged, twisting towards where he was speaking without really pointing to it. How could someone have so many facial features?

          They started away.

          “Goodbye, Nathan.”

          “Goodbye, Asher.”

          Nathan Hale peaked back at him only once just to see he was staring right back, walking with a spring in his step. He allowed a smirk to consume his face and blocked it out as his mother and father scolded him that night and he was sent to bed without dinner than evening.

          He didn’t care.

          Enoch brought him portions of the meal he had stuffed into his pockets. Nathan swallowed it down and ignored the questions regarding the stains in his clothing and the mulberry growth on his forehead or the blood staining his nostrils.

          “Dear Enoch, I have discovered a _person_.”

 

___________________

 

          The next morning, and many mornings after, Nathan eagerly jolted himself from sleep at the proper time, bounding off the porch with bread portions and breakfast flaking in his pockets to meet Asher at the crossroad where their homes both joint into one stretch the land. Joseph hiked by himself, and Enoch managed to slink along with himself and Asher. There was so much joy in their walks, it only increased when they got to school. Asher wasn’t hesitant to introduce him to three others. Among them, Nathan was the youngest.

          Matthew, the oldest, was a scrawny, lanky boy with a crop of flaming and curly crimson hair, he appeared almost like a scarecrow with bony fingers, hunched dorsels and an awkward demeanor. Thomas, only a few months older than Nathan, more often coined Tommy by his peers, was a short chubby boy with waving arms and a thrusting, bellowing voice that made it to where if he laughed you were wrapped up in it as well. Josiah, a little older than Asher but younger than Matthew, had slicked, curtailed, ashy hair and startling honey eyes that blinked out from thick eyelashes like an animal. Muscular, with a soft demeanor and pouring soul, he was the only one who posed any competition when they sprinted across the lawn. Of course there was Asher, nestled perfectly in the center of the age groups, the leader, the most popular not only for his contagious charisma and charming beam but for attention drawn to himself. Nathan cannot count the times he was forced to lean over a desk while the Davenport used corporal punishment upon him in front of the other students.

          The first day Asher brought Nathan to them, Tommy stole his crumpled bread loaf. Just as Nathan to about to open his mouth in angry protests, a fuzzy, pump, peach was deposited into the palm of his hand. The second day, Josiah began to ruffle his hair whenever he saw him which caused him great annoyance until Nathan began ripping his carefully tucked shirt out from his flaxen eyed friend’s waist to his grief. The third day Asher greeted him with a slap on the back that knocked the wind straight from his lungs. There were times when Enoch joined them, seating himself next to Nathan and the boys were interested by him for some odd reason. It would be little time before Enoch was fully involved in all their group and little time after that before Matthew was his closest friend; besides Nathan of course.

          On the fourth, while seated on the grass, Nathan began to pry at the dandelions sprouting from the soil, lost in his own mind.

          “What is that on your neck, Nathan?”, Matthew asked, biting at his nails.

          Again, Asher glared at him, blinking and all eyes turned upon him as if the sun had basked him in its holy light. Dropping the flowers from his fingers he squeezed his fingers to the mole in his neck, applying pressure to it before shrugging. “I’ve always had it, as long as I can remember, as long as my mother can remember, believe me, boys, I inquired.” Josiah smirked at this and Nathan derived great pleasure.

          Tommy licked his fingers, “You know what they say a mole on the neck means, right?”

          Nathan shook his head.

          Asher leaned forward, towards him, “A mole on the neck means-”, the somber haired boy stopped himself in his track, peering at the rest of his friends who had glanced at him. The boy of a thousand words had none left. The eyes turned back towards him and the revolving summer wind felt colder than it be.

          “Nathan Hale,” Asher Wright began, dusting off his hands; their eyes met, “You are to be hanged.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:
> 
> \- Personally, I have not found enough research to find out which brother Benjamin Tallmadge was closest to. So, I made it John Tallmadge (in later chapter Isaac Tallmadge will be included in their shenanigans).   
> \- Samuel Tallmadge was the most social of his brothers and was the closest with people such as Caleb Brewster and Austin Roe (even though he was GREATLY younger).   
> \- The first tutor Nathan Hale had was Jonathan Davenport and his house/schoolhouse was three miles from his home.  
> \- John and Samuel have moved out of the Hale household because by this age, colonial men were not living in their homes unless they were helping provide for their families.   
> \- Asher Wright was Nathan Hale's childhood best friend and he is very important to Nathan Hale's life during his war career.   
> \- Asher Wright recorded later in life that himself and their childhood friends used to chide Nathan Hale for the mole of his neck because it was an omen he was to be hanged.   
> \- The rest of Nathan's childhood friends are all my invention.


	7. Chapter Seven | Frigid Blankets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben meets a new friend with a secret and Nathan secretly battles his father's tyrannical ways of religion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, Nora (@umbrellabirds on Tumblr) is my new gifted.

**December 29th, 1765**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          The woodland was low, the forest bare as a pearl, laced up in every aspect of intimacy and isolation. The trees were dressed all up in ice and snow, allying and blending with a pewter and shedding sky above. He couldn’t find where the sky fell and the mountain range began. There he breathed in the icy, frigid wind and licked his chapped lips, rubbing a numb nose. He could hardly feel his fingertips nor the feet in his shoes in the miles he had before there was rest. He reached the water’s edge and exhaled a sigh of relief, relishing in the gentle and rare hoot of an owl nearby that he could not catch with his naked eye. This year the river was flat, calm and so still he could see the pebbles underneath and rolling water sloshing gently against the bank of the bend. He wished to sit down, to shed his jacket to underneath him and shut his eyes; but he did not know if he would ever reopen them. By morning he’d of vanished into something entirely new.

          He continued to stand as the snow flecked the fabric of his shoulders, the icy kisses fluttering by. Ben’s stomach growled in hunger although he did not want to return to his home after he’d ventured this far. He could not tell where the sun was located or how dark it was gradually becoming. The drowsy feeling in his eyelids did not cease and his feet swayed dangerously close to the water’s edge. John hadn’t caught him this time before he’d headed out of the door and perhaps he was a little thankful to have the forest relinquished only for his purposes.

          That was the scene where he met _him_.

          Caught under twinkling fragments of snowflakes that glittered and tumbled to the earth. He pictures it in his head every so often, recollects how everything began with him. Who would he have been without him, he ponders. A chill trickled down his spine, not because of the freezing weather or how the heels of his shoes were worn and beginning to soil; it felt off, as if there an entity there that didn’t belong. He heard the pitter-patter of feet trekking through the heightened snow when through the fog _he_ emerged boldly as though straight from his affection and delirious imaginations. Ben did not have many friends, or any for that matter, and he begs to differ when questioned if he had chosen this--because he had.

          There someone came, and as Ben studied the silhouette closer he could see that he was running as fast as the knee-high snow would allow. He stood petrified watching him come closer to him and not doing anything about it. The boy hadn’t seemed to notice him until now when he gasped, chest heaving, hands pressed firmly onto his knees as his incremented his head up to meet him. Ben sucked in his breath and the hunched person was scrutinizing through a tangle of ebony hair of which hung thickly in front of his eyes. It took a moment before he raised a trembling hand to hold the bangs out of his eyes. They were ash, molding precariously with the atmosphere about them and stuck in a bubble of tension that both were hesitant to touch. It was one of those unexplainable moments of eye-contact where everything ceases to breathe, and the rare occasion when truth was bold before it simmers away.

          Ben arched an eyebrow, twisting his chin to the side and crossing his arms. “Who are you?”, he deciphered the definition of all his mysterious thoughts. He flash backed, knowing he recognized him from church every Sunday or in his father’s schoolhouse when he stopped in occasionally. Ben had never bothered to learn his name or his story or any other part of him that there may be hidden beneath the cracks of his identity. With eyes that blended into all the tinctures of the snow and sky. His skin was a tan sort of ivory which stood out and blended into the season as an orchid. Wildness in his bones and a million intricate tales woven into their soul. Immediately the boy straightened fully, seldom a few inches taller than him and thus far Ben was growing to be taller than his only eldest brother William. He was destined to be the largest, they say. Ben stepped back and the stranger rushed towards him as an arrow shot from a bow string and blasted behind him. Without time to struggle, a hand was slapped over his mouth and he immediately fought to rip it off.

          “I’ll shall let you go if you quiet and stop struggling,” a warm yet bitter voice rang against his ear, thermal breath shuddering on the shell and causing another quiver to move down his spine. Ben discontinued the struggle, seeing as he couldn’t win. Their other hand was agonizingly close to his waist, holding him in place. The hand fell off of his mouth and Ben seethed with anger, spinning around to face his attacker.

          “What the hell was that?!”, he shouted, raising his arms up and taking a second glance at the perpetrator. Immediately, before he could study their face, he sensed convulsing and stiff fingers grip his wrist and begin to lead him in a half jog away from the river edge.

          The boy panted, attempting to compose his word, and Ben felt his ankles filling with snow despite the boots he was wearing. “Please, quiet, he’ll hear you, we have to go quick.”

          Ben tried to protest but the latch on his wrist became tighter, “We?”, he audibly asked though there was no reply.

          The boy ripped him down to the ground, tugging into him to the snow. Ben almost groaned and parted his mouth to do so when the hand laced back around his waist, lying him on his back and the frozen palm was shoved against his mouth once again. The stranger’s joint, laying on his throat, was pulsating theoretically and he could practically hear the hammering of that heartbeat through the muscle, tissue, skin and bone.

          “Please, Benny, be quiet, he’ll hear you.”

          Ben swallowed down any questions he made of had at his name. They both heeded the snapping of twigs a few yards back. The stranger tried to focus his breathing by burying his face into the back of Ben’s coat, the one of visible confusion set his jaw. There was someone making their way through the ice, the clink of several buckles on his boots chiming together with every step like hundreds of silver bells ringing in time. He, nor the person who had dragged him into this brisk entrenchment, could see who was there from their spot on the ground covered only by a few overgrown, slicken bushes and a thick tree trunk before them. The boy underneath him rested the back of his head upon it. Ben could tell they were holding his eyes shut as if their life depended upon it, and perhaps, it did.

          The steady steps concluded, the scratch of the bases slinking together almost drunkenly. The hand pressed harder to his mouth and his teeth began digging into his inner lip. A voice rang out from the hollow surroundings like a shout in overcast. “Jonas…”, it was masked in harmony with a hint of edge, “...you know I would never purposely do anything as that to you, my son.” The letters were jumbled, slurred together and his footsteps, like boulders crashing to the earth from their place on the ground, were sluggish, blundering on himself and unable to carry the weight of their large body. Jonas did not shift from beneath him or make any gesture to run into his father’s arms again. There was fear nestled there. He hopes one day he’ll laugh in the face of anyone who every made him afraid or put hesitation on his tongue.

          Ben squirmed from Jonas’s arms, stepping up despite their colorless arms reaching for him and attempting to restrain him back down. There was no use hiding. Ben met his eyes and nodded sternly causing the reaching hands to fall off him and they sinked into the blanket of chiffon presenting as if he wished to bury himself among all the roots and grow into a piece of the scene. With a plan in mind Ben stumbled out from their spot, rubbing the hair out of his eyes with his snow coated sleeve covered in those fragments of the heavens. The figure turned towards him, looming tall above him. A man with the blood vessels of his nose beginning to revolve into a striking weave of scarlet veins, his eyes were puffy peach tinge and hardly visible. He was tall, impressionable and made quite the appearance with that stern expression on his brows. He looked like his son.

          Ben was at a loss for words.

          “Tallmadge?”, the man asked, stumbling forward and smoothing out his hair to make himself appear more respectable as if the boy he was encountering was going to run home that moment and tell his father exactly what he saw; after this he never did tell anyone, not even his father or John. His hands pointed towards him like accusing daggers, “You’re the Reverend’s son, Benjamin, isn’t it?”.

          Ben nodded his head slowly, straightening his posture and lifting his chin up. “That I am, Sir.”

          The man listened before speaking once again, “You haven’t happened so see my son anywhere here, perhaps?”, there was a crack in his voice and Ben could sense Jonas still in the spot holding his breath with every ounce of energy.

          “No, Sir, I have never seen another out here.”

          He seemed to question the youth before him and Ben rectified his mouth in reply to maintain it. “You ought not to be out this far.”

          Ben thought of a million possibilities. The man staggered away without a second word or a glance back before disappearing from whence he'd came. Ben breathed a sigh of relief not knowing precisely why something at thrown him off. Treding closer to Jonas with a smile on his face, the boy looked up at him with startling eyes that reflected the trickling skies. Ben didn’t think about if they’d ever see each other again but he followed his form as it stormed back through the snow, marching slower than usual as if something of deeper and dangerous things awaited him wherever he was headed on his journey. He’ll never forget the words that passed Jonas’s opaque lips or the glow that glimmered across his folding eyes.

          “Thank you.”

 

__________________

 

**January 25th, 1766**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- II -----**

 

          “What’s that you have there?”, Enoch lifted his eyes from his book and studied his little brother of whom was lying on his stomach on the floorboards between their beds.

          Nathan peered up from what he was doing, setting tiny circular pieces down on a checkerboard top. There was black and white pieces of which he put on opposite colored squares. He did not smile, firming his lips and gazing back down at the board in concentration. “Asher allowed me use of it.”

          “Yes,” Enoch rocked his head, “but what is it?”

          “Draughts.”

          “Draughts?”

          “Yes, Enoch, Draughts,” he looked up and mustered a tiny muse, “Would you like to play?”

          Per usual, the older brother rolled his eyes, setting his book cover up on the bed, splitting the pages before slipping to the ground beside the bed lateral to Nathan who propped himself up on his elbows. There they sat in silence for a few seconds.

          “Uh, what do you do?”

          In confusion, Nathan furrowed his brow, “I-”, he held himself back before he could continue.

          Enoch smirked in humor, “You do not know.”

          “I do!”

          The elder crossed his arms in front of his chest, clearly unamused at his antics.

          Annoyed as well, Nathan sat up, “Believe me, Asher taught me, I can do it.”

          And Enoch did believe him, and he did listen.

 

___________________

 

 

          It was not long before the brothers began teaching the game to Richie and Billie who caught on a lot better than Davy did seeing as they were much older than him. With everything that contributed in the Hale household religion was the greatest air. In the morning he rose and breathed it in like life itself, the pattern of the breath in his chest swept in this same tiny atmosphere. It had been nearly two years since Samuel and John had left the household and there was only Joseph the occupy the room across the hall that he had once shared with them. Joseph didn’t mind giving Richie, Billie and Davy that room, moving himself into the bed adjacent to Enoch and Nathan’s. Nathan doesn’t think he ever heard him utter a single verse in that room or on their walks to school where he lunged ahead, walking solo.

          That game got Joseph to speak when he entered the room to witness his younger siblings huddled onto the ground of the crowding room. The older brother unwrapped a swaddled article of cloth from his neck, there were still snow flakes on the tread of coat when he removed it from himself and set on the end of his bed post. “What is that you all have there?”

          The room grew quieter and he snooped towards the floor where Richie was prepared to slide a piece across the board to grab one of Davy’s black pieces. Nathan struck up from ground and faced him, a little mischievous grin transforming his cheeks. He rubbed the back of his neck nervously, “A game.”

          Joseph raised an eyebrow, “A game?”, he questioned, busying himself by re-organizing a stack of books which had toppled over on his dresser top.

          Richie moved the piece he’d been holding, staring back down at the gameboard and crossing the little circular piece of polished and flaking wood. “A game.” His brother confirmed, scratching his curls and nodding a chin towards the five year old sitting across from him.

          Joseph was puzzled for a minute, studying Enoch, Nathan, Richie, Billie and Davy all of whom began to take rounds around the gameboard, combating whomever had won the previous round in competition. After ten minutes of speculating he finally sat himself on his bed, “Papa does not appreciate games, you all know this.”

          They all nodded at his remark but did nothing in a consequence or result of the eldest’s words. “You better not tell, Joseph,” Enoch glanced at him, setting his jaw.

          Joseph sighed, leaning his chin on his elbow, “How does one play?”

 

___________________

 

 

          Eliza stumbled in to call them for dinner an hour later, the eleventh and latest Hale child rested on her hip. Joanna nibbled on her fingers, resting the top of her little head with a ringlet of flaxen locks on the undercut of Eliza’s jaw. “What have you lot acquired?”

          Nathan only beamed and beckoned her over by the hand, “Come, Eliza, won’t you play with us?”

 

___________________

 

 

          The next day they tried to find who was the ultimate champion of all of them. Just as Eliza was to set in stone her taking of the final piece of Billie’s, the bedroom door opened even farther and Richard Hale entered the room. He stole an unfavorable glance at where the board was located on the floorboards. The result? Another night without dinner even as his brothers were not quick to sell out where they'd gotten the game, he ultimately sacrificed himself in the end. The figures were messily stuffed into the game, set high above a shelf in Papa’s study. There were extra prayers at dinner that evening.

          “It will lead to improper thoughts,” his father scolded him, slapping him only once across the palms, “especially those directed at the Lord.”

          It was a lonely night, shadows from leafless trees providing him with the only morbid comfort. It was all set again, Joseph was silent as usual and Richie and Billie buried themselves together off on their own adventures. Nathan never saw Eliza anywhere but with smoky bags underneath her eyelids at the dinner table from the meal she prepared; they were the same that he once saw under his mother’s only hers were darker, graver. His mother was due for child in a week's time, perhaps less, perhaps more, these things were trivial. He remembers one evening in particular, a few days after his palms were stung with his siblings all gathered in his father’s study within their own minds.

           Nathan himself was simply observing his father’s dozing eyelids, the dim shimmer of the candle light igniting the room into a sheltered blaze. When Richard’s eyes officially shut and there were gentle snores billowing from his chest, Nathan sat up, nobody paying the slightest attention to him. Little Joanna was asleep upstairs where she always slept in Eliza’s bed; Mama sat in an armchair, her tired and bony fingers working at a tiny needle and thread, another outfit for the coming baby, the needle work lay on top of her enlarged stomach. Joseph was reading, Enoch was drawing and Eliza was beside her mother in the same performance. Billie, Richie and Davy were quietly setting up tiny toy soldiers on the floor and knocking them over and over, occasionally getting into silent arguments where they shoved each other and whispered loudly among one another furiously in mad gestures.

          Studying carefully, his palms beginning to sweat, he searched quietly for the board game, viewing among the hidden bookshelves until he discovered where it was located on a shelf where he could not reach. The commotion brought stares of vehement confusion from Enoch who mouthed to him, inquiring what it was he was doing. Nathan only shut his eyes in hushed  determination, affirming and pointing to the game which caught Enoch attention high on the shelf. Silently, understanding his younger brother, Enoch rose from his spot on the floor, dusting off the back of his hands on his pants. He aided his brother, providing a higher standing and he reached for the game, dragging it down. Enoch’s sudden absence caught Joseph's attention as he postulated himself in front of them, knowing the shuddering and switching of Mama’s eyes at the picture of her sons.

          In the illumination of the candle light and the shimmer from dark to light, the boys gathered around the game; all of them, everyone of his brothers until his older sister ultimately discarded her needle work and pulled up a chair beside to them. Their mother did not act, he thought at first perhaps it was the exhaustion but it was something else. When he revolved around after losing to Joseph he found her surveying them, the clear shine of her azure eyes glistening like the top of a pond in moonlight in a summer twilight. It was them and only them, he perceived, as their same eyes met in the tension, that if the world were blanketed in tenebrosity she would be able to peel back a veil of light and reveal to them all a blinding crescendo of stars. Her fiery gaze was all he could see through a tunnel of deception and he did not want to look away as he did not care for the game in that moment. The trance like stare was unbroken, her radiance blinding him. A trivial moment of almost nothing of occurrence.

          She smiled and the entire sky peered in the watch the curious scene. She winked, returning her gaze to her needle work. He became in love with a memory, was that even a possibility?

 

 

___________________

 

 

          He returned to bed with fulfillment in his soul, encompassing every orpheus of his body and mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> \- Jonas is the only major character I have created myself. You'll get to know him more later.  
> \- True story, Nathan Hale had a game of Draughts but his father took his away because he thought it would lead to improper thoughts about God or stray them away from religion. According to historical accounts, one night, the Hale siblings snuck the game out after Richard Hale had fallen asleep and began to play it by his dimming candlelight.  
> \- By the way, Draughts is just checkers.


	8. Chapter Eight | Gold Butterfly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben became acquainted with Jonas and Nathan's mother is loosing strength.

**March 15th, 1766**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          Benjamin Tallmadge chose to forget. He thought of Jonas a few times after what had occurred between them. He saw him only in parting glances where he was nestling uncomfortably in a church pew. Their scene, that had melted under a misting sky, plays in his mind on rainy days when darkness was consumed the light. The color of his eyes dribbles against the sleek glass of the window. For weeks he waited eagerly for church on Sundays only to have Jonas within his site as quick as he was gone. It was difficult to dismiss someone who gave him so much to remember. They met eye contact only once on those days, a rapid second before his father seated them in the front row. He glared at Jonas hoping that he would peer his way; only once he did. Ben wouldn’t allow this to shadow his mind or cause him any hope as he waded by the river hoping he’d come springing through the brush towards him. After a while, the mystery faded from his imagination. He did not attempt to make eye contact with him or attend occasional lessons at his father’s schoolhouse in hopes of getting his attention.

          It was shortly after his twelfth birthday when Papa told him he would not longer be receiving lessons from Mama in the kitchen. He didn’t ask what this meant: he already knew. William had known when Papa told him those exact words two years ago. In reply, Ben nodded and waited till his father left the room. There was only Mama left, stacking used dishes on the counter. More than ever, he would miss  times where only he could answer her questions at their dining table as he stuffed corners of bread between his teeth. He thumbed through book as though he belonged within the pages. Mama wiped her forehead with the back of her hand, sleeves hiked up to her elbows as she scrubbed the dishes. She occasionally brushed stray hair out of her eyes. He approached her, standing beside her in the dim kitchen light.

         “Mama?” She hummed in reply and he pressed forward. “Why am I attending Papa’s schoolhouse earlier than the other boys?”. He was barely twelve and all the others were fourteen, fifteen, maybe even a little older from what he’d seen. Abraham Woodhull was sixteen, Austin Roe seventeen, he could go on.

          She continued her actions, not even casting an eye in his direction. “Don’t bother comparing yourself, Benjamin, you’re far more brilliant than the rest.”

          _What was brilliancy exactly?_

          It was as if she could read his mind, “Brilliancy, Benjamin, is the essence of intelligence.”

          Ben rose in the morning with a sliver of spring morning sun. He tiptoed past his young brothers as they slept and joined William and Papa downstairs. They headed out of the door with a crumb in his protesting stomach. It was a short walk, only five minutes from the porch. There was no cause for alarm when the tips of his fingers froze and cold bumps rose on his neck.  He sat through the day knowing plenty well Jonas  was confused  when there was not one but two Tallmadge brothers seated  . He kept his coat on and felt flint eyes boring holes into his skull. He burrowed farther in the collar of the coat. There were fifteen boys total, each ranging from thirteen to seventeen in age. The only one who passed him a smile as they entered was Abe whose goofy, queasy grin made him smirk back. Abe’s grin   quickly  faded as Austin Roe stumbled  boisterously   through the doorway. He slapped Abe  playfully  in the back of the head before they both sat down. The rest he did not much care for, others boys he had seen in church. As far as he  was concerned , none of them were interesting in the slightest.

          It was a week before Jonas approached him.

          Father dismissed his students, telling William and Ben not to wait for him. They left, William joining two other older boys a he went off. Abe waved to him before he left, shoving Austin as he passed by. Ben shuffled off the porch, an empty feeling encompassing his lungs, it felt as empty as a pocket of air. He slicked back his hair, with this time he could head to the woods if he wanted to. This thought made him beam privately. He felt a hand slide across his shoulder blade and he whirled around, tilting his chin up to meet whomever was behind him.

          “Benny.”

          Ben’s own eyes tumbled to their shoulder. He followed up the homespun sleeve to a swaddled neck where the skin there has white as cotton. Messy splatters little freckles peppered underneath and gave his eyes the illusion that he was exhausted.

          Ben swallowed, “Jonas.”

          He simpered meekly in response as he saw the pattern of his name shape another’s lips. Ben felt a somewhat complete, after all this time of attempting to catch his attention all it took was for him to quit trying.

          Jonas rubbed the back of his neck, “I-I’m sorry, I am not very _proficient_ in conversation.”

          Ben shrugged his shoulders, it was nothing he cared about, neither was he but they must all try to construct some type of mannerism in the end. As he glimpsed closer and saw a type of lively exhaustion one doesn’t see in an active dream.

          Ben returned the smile, “I am fluent in silence too.”

 

 

___________________

**March 20th, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- II -----**

 

          Mama gave birth to a baby sister Susannah, or Suky as he had loved to call her. Six weeks later she was dead.  They buried her in the ground and the eleven year old felt his life was fit  solely  for repetition: he’d love something long enough for it to  be lost  . His mother’s stomach would fill over a prolonged several months and she  was robbed  all strength. Her child would live, now she had not stability left to give. Papa never told him what happened to Suky nor did he tell his wife.  Mama was not a seed that could break through brittle walls, nor a sprout reaching with outstretched leaves into the glow of sunlight . She was not a tree, solid and stoic; she was a human born to live and born to die.

           Nathan was used to difficult births, it was common to be shuttled to his uncle's home for a week. He was familiar with the layer of melancholy smothering the air when his mother shut her eyes and everyone feared they would never witness glow again. It was typically a month before she was standing once again; this time she did not get better. He once heard her say in a hushed whisper that she was terrified she’d never make it back up again. It was that determination which kept her alive; determination which gave him hope she would indeed rebound. He visited her in her room when he came back from the schoolhouse, fearful that she would not be there. It was self-destruction, not defense.

          Three years he attended John Davenport’s home tutoring with a collection of others. However, at the turn of the year Davenport injured himself to what most saw as a point of no recovery. This was not actually true, the Master did in fact recover but at the loss of his love of the teach. In this illness, all of his students were transferred to the tutelage of another. Timothy Dwight was a wiry young man with thin framed glasses and an appearance much of a scrawny birdman. Still, Master Dwight stuttered and was far more hesitant to impose corporal punishment upon his students.

          Nathan prayed when he awoke, he prayed when he ate, he prayed at dinner and he prayed before sleep for God to return his mother’s soul. Papa never told her that her child was gone. He instructed them that they were not allowed to tell her either. Where was the life he once saw in his mother’s eyes? It lays untouched and mortally wounded deep within her. He hoped it was only hidden just as a caterpillar crawls in its casing; it was will emerge one day stronger than it ever had before.

          Where was her butterfly now?

 

 

___________________

**April 6th, 1767**

Setauket, New York

**\----- III -----**

 

          It drew them to the place where they had first met. Their pants were rolled up to the knees, smooth round stones sliding between their fingers as they tossed them across the pond. The water was bitter, it took time before their ankles were numb and they had become accustomed to ignoring the pain. A pebble shifted in Ben’s hand and he tossed it across the surface of the water. The current and wavering tides did not make it easy as they kept jutting into the nooks.

          “Jonas”, Ben started, turning back and watching Jonas a feet few away. He had a tongue between his teeth in concentration.

           “Yes, Benny?”

          Ben grimaced, _only my father calls me that_. He sighed, “Why must you call me that? There are plenty of other names to construct from _Benjamin_.”

          Jonas let out a shriek, tossing his head back. His raven toned hair glided off his forehead as he did this.

          Ben’s forehead scrunched, “What are you laughing for?”

          He discontinued, the grin remained plastered to his expression. He passed his eyes to Ben who couldn’t contain his own. “Can you recollect the day you first met me?”, he inquired, turning his head and rubbing his thumb over the slick edges of a rock he’d pried from the river water.

 _It replays in my mind every day, I believe, and I find meanings in things I didn’t before_. He nodded his reply as if it meant nothing to him. He still remembered the flecks of snow that were gathered on the shoulder of his coat and the fear in his eyes.

          “I recall there was confusion when I knew your name without us ever having a conversation.”

          “I am the reverend’s son, what can you expect?”, he joked though gained nothing in return. Jonas shut his eyes for a long period as if he was trying to gather all Ben’s words.

          “Your father calls you Benny, he speaks of you often,” he tossed the stone in his hand and it skipped three times before dipping into the crystal water.

          “Me?”

          “You.”

          Ben did not demand to know what he was doing half a mile into the woods on a frigid winter evening. He did not query as to why his father was chasing him . He ignored these personal challenge. Ben only had a glimpse of the indent of bruises across his fingers and his shins. They would just appear, sometimes here and occasionally there, colorful and sodden at the exact time. He’d never ask how they got there, perhaps he already knew but was too afraid to say. Jonas remained idle in the water for longer after Ben was beginning to put his shoes back on. Everything tasted a little sweeter in these times.

 

 

________________

 

 

          Two weeks after, Jonas met John for the first time. They got along well, frequently wrestling on the grass with Ben observing. The almost nine year old constantly lamented that he was not old enough  to join them in the Reverend’s college preparatory courses. There was minuscule things, how Jonas tussled John’s hair whenever they greeted each other, or how he seldom carried “Johnny” on his back. They would whistle familiar tunes together as the trotted. He’d help John into trees that he couldn’t yet reach or laugh with him. Every time Ben propped himself on the ground against a tree trunk and cracked open a book, he felt his eyes wander up from the page towards the edge of the embankment. They were both sitting there: most days Jonas tried to teach John to fish with a twig, a wiry strand of twine an earthworm at the end of it. He’d smile and Jonas would catch his eye over John’s shoulder, a bounce of emotion before his gaze stumbled back to the phrases. He still sensed Jonas studying him, grinning out of the corner of his eye.

          Jonas constantly rubbed a shiny gold cross that dangled around his neck. He usually tucked it into the front of his shirt and did not speak of it as if it was for him and only him. It was nothing special, coarse, a diverted shade at the sharpened edges of the molten shape. Ben was with him when the chain broke and he witnessed frantic and fearful thoughts take shape in his brain.

          “We have to find, Benny, we have to find it,” there was a hint of edge in his voice. The words wavered together, syllables droning into a high pitched tone. He winced as he accidentally prodded a bruise on his collarbone. He promptly tugged the neck of his sweater over it as if to conceal it. His hands shifted in the soil, skimming over the terrace hoping something would catch his eye or touch.

          “We’ll find it, believe me, we will find it,” Ben reassured, crouching down next to him. They pieced through the dirt trying to find a tiny battered cross.

          It took them an hour but Ben found it, dropping it into Jonas’s palm carefully where their fingers made contact. There was a flinch of disbelief, blinking several times until he grasped Ben’s wrist, ripping him until they made contact and there were arms wrapped around his back. A flicker in his bones, an inferno of life where every strand of himself felt created from light of a thousand days. He pulled back  before he fell in, chin resting upon the taller’s shoulder and he shifted in his arms.

          “You’re welcome.”

 

 

______________________

 

 

          Jonas kept the cross on a pathetic black cord after his chain broke. It was too short to conceal under the collar of his shirt and it would take a while before he had gotten accustomed to it. Ben aided his father, tended to all the pastel roses his mother had wrapped across the railing of the porch steps. In the end he earned enough money to drop into his father’s hand one weekend before he headed to the market in town. Papa raised a brow, glancing at the glittering coins his son had deposited into the palm of his hand as though suspicious of where they had come.

          “Where did you get this?”, he asked, placing a hand upon his hip, keeping the coins extended out towards him. They were postulated in the doorway of the house, prepared to leave the vicinity.

          Ben shifted his footing, placing his hands behind his back and straightening his posture. “From you, Papa.”

          It was Samuel’s turn to go with their father to the market. Every week it interchanged between his three eldest sons, Isaac and John being much too young for the physical labor his father required. Next year John could go to market with Papa, for now he could only groan as he observed as their carriage jutted across the hill to their destination and disappeared from sight. Ben would reassure him as best he could, distract him by accompanying him to the river where he soon forgot about the market and what he was missing out over.

          “And, what is it you require?”

          “I need a chain, Papa, for a charm.”

          Whilst tilting the coins into a tiny leather pouch that rested on his pelvis, Papa looked away, “If you require an item from the market possibly Samuel would be willing to form an accord and give you another week, if you truly need something.”

          Ben thought of his own anticipation last week and shook his head softly, “No, Sir, Samuel should go, we all anticipate for it.”

          Father grinned, Mama placed a kiss on his cheek and reminding him of all the items she needed. “Who knew physical labor entices my sons,” she rolled his eyes gently and glanced with a tilted neck to Ben who pursed his lips to steady his spreading grin.

          That evening his father came back with exactly what he’d asked for, a shimmering gold chain that caught Samuel's eyes in the market. Sitting upon his mattress, he inserted the chain in a shapely box, tying it up with a cherry wax string to hold it together. He fell asleep that evening tossing in his bed, curdling storm clouds swirling among the heavens of slate and murky denim. It felt like silk, seeping it softly through his eyes and breathing in the delicate night. He dreamed he was hovering over the edge of a clear lake waiting for the stars to fall and make him feel brighter and stronger than who he was.

          During the afternoon of Jonas’s thirteenth birthday, a blustery April day, he gave his friend the box.

          “You didn’t have to, you know that.”

_Oh, but I did._

          From then on Jonas carried the closest thing to his heart on something Ben had worked for. He caught him rubbing it often and it took him long before he understood why a replaceable cross would not be something to trade for the greatest beauties on the Earth. He felt him on the branches that scraped his window pane or the occasional time-altering moment when their hands brushed as they walked; it was only mere moments of burning desire before it was over. In the present, Ben crammed these thoughts to the corners of his conscious.

          When they revolved from one another to separate paths home, Jonas slumped, treading at an awfully slow pace with his feet practically dragging to delay the arrival time. _Who wouldn’t want to come home?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Susannah Hale only lived a few weeks after being born and did result in the final weakening of Nathan's mother.  
> \- John Davenport and Timothy were both real professors that Nathan studied under before Yale. Timothy Dwight would go on later to be president of Yale.  
> \- Benjamin Tallmadge's father was a teacher and trained boys in Setauket for Yale.


	9. Chapter Nine | Bruising

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan's mother isn't getting better. Jonas has a few secrets.

**April 6th, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- I -----**

 

          “She’s not getting any better,” Nathan whispered below the articulation of Master Dwight while pretending to listen intently to his teachings.

          Asher shifted in his seat, perking a head up from his palm, “She’s not?”

          When the master turned away from the class, Josiah tipped his seat back in the row preceding and faced them. “Who’s not what?”

          Asher’s eyes turned down to his paper and he tapped his fingers lazily at the edge of the desk, “Naty’s mother hasn’t recovered.”

          Josiah chewed on his tongue a little, “I bet you she’ll get better soon, Nathan, these things take time.” He angled around quickly into his seat when the Master began to speak once again.

          Matthew bumped his shoulder with his elbow, causing the legs of his chair to skid a few inches on the floor but not enough to draw any kind of attention. “Where’s Enoch today?”, he grilled, using his nail to absentmindedly burrow a deeper scratch into the desk where one was already present.

          It was barely nine in the morning and he was already bombarded with so many questions. His forehead tipped forward and he shut his eyes, rubbing his temples and tossing back his hair when he perched back up. “Enoch is ill, I tried to get a good cough in but my father wasn’t having it today.”

          From behind him Thomas pulled himself across his desk to the dismay of the other students who were sitting around him. “Why fake sick?”

          Nathan scoffed, “Why not?”. He wanted to be with his mother.

          Josiah tipped his seat back again, “You’re lucky you get to stay here,” he shook his head solemnly, “My father’s pulling me by the end of the year, says he needs increased aide in the field.” His eyes rolled distastefully and he shook his head, revolving back around.

          The cranks geared and twisted in Nathan’s head, “Josiah, your father isn’t allowing you schooling any longer?”

          Without twisting around his head, he shook his head and Nathan slumped in his seat. He’d miss not only the company of a friend but the only one who provided him any athletic challenge.

          A fuse burst within him, “That’s an outrage!”

          Several other students turned their heads to look at his outburst and he attempted to slump into his seat and avoid detection from the Master with salt and pepper hair. Dwight closed the book he was reading from, his wrinkled hands fell to his side.

          “Hale secondus?”

          “Yes?”, he meekly retorted.

          “You can translate the Latin phrase for the class now, rise.”

          On their walk home Asher tried as he could not to tease Nathan about the speckled blush marks on the palms of his hands and the discontentment in his face. “I hate him.”

          Asher laughed, tightening the strap on his bag, “Who doesn't?”

          When they got where the two roads diverged, Asher didn’t flick him in the forehead in farewell. For once his face was serious, grave almost. “I hope your mother a quick recovery, Nathan. Best wishes to Enoch as well.”

          Nathan smiled a little despite the circumstances, “Thank you, Asher.”

 

___________________

**April 14th, 1767**

Setauket, New York

**\----- II -----**

 

          They were perched on the branches of a tall oak tree that diverged off of the the overground path. Jonas with his arms behind his head and his eyes sealed, nose upturned to the crisp spring air. Ben took a bite out of an apple, tipping his hat over his face and chewing rapidly. “What is so significant over the cross?”.

          Jonas parted one eye open in response before closing it again. “It was my mother’s” The pad of his thumb came up to rub it between to fingers like a prayer.

          Ben swallowed his bite, the splinters in his hands beginning to sting his fingers as the chunks stuck dryly to the inside of his gorge. There was no wind today and he felt balanced for once, keeping himself steady so high up from the ground where he did not dare look down for he could not fly, unfortunately. “Oh, Jonas, I am sorry.”

          He shrugged, “I truly loved her, as you love John.” The image of his sprouting and gap-toothed younger brother loomed heavily upon his mind. “She passed two years ago” There were no details as if he felt he did not need to include them. “Of her I have this little corroding cross and a thousand memories to cover every fiber of my senses. I occasionally forget that she is parted while I am still here.” He sighed, the column of his throat bobbing slightly in the tense words, “It is my father and I. I and my father and my house that it not a home.”

          Ben put his legs out, placing his hands folded in front of his lap. “A house is not a home; a house is a place to rest your head upon. A house is not a place where your heart and soul feel deceased.”

          Curious, Jonas postulated himself up, taller than before and Ben saw a hint of something old inside of him and he turned his jaw to the side. “However, people are not comfort either, they are like rivers, ever changing” Their eyes met and the silver of his eyes appeared to shine this day like the sun had emerged from the sewn quilt of clouds. “Still, a home does not need a pulse to keep it live. It isn’t locked in another’s chest-”

          “Look inside your own.”

          Jonas clamped his mouth when those combinations of letters were spoken. “Oh, Benny, but nobody can truly live alone.”

 

______________________

 

 

          “Where’d you get that?”, Ben canvassed, gesturing to a vibrant violet bruise underneath Jonas’s eye. Without control he reached fingers over when his visage turned. His fingers pressed against the tender flesh of skin and his friend winced slightly at the pressure.

          Jonas didn’t try anything this time, he simply shrugged his shoulders and glimpsed, disregarding the wound on his face as if he’d become accustomed to them being there. But there were old bruises too which longed desperately to poke back through the skin and make themselves known.

          “How’s your father?”

          This caught Jonas off guard and his neck snapped back, still and motionless. His fingers started to pry at the grass, tugging it from it’s roots and rubbing it between the pads of his fingers. “My father is, and has, been as he has been consistently for nearly three years.” But he saw it, his mind racing to balconies of silent fervor and that every spot where his touch landed devoured it all.

          “What that may be?”, Ben was aware of all the questions he was spilling forward like an avalanche.

          “Most people you are agreeable towards will kill you in the end.”

          His mother always tells him stories of his solitude as a child and in these times where the words filled every corner of his cheeks and his tongue was bathed in verses, he cannot help but recognize his silence is dangerous in every aspect. His silence was like a ghost clinging hungrily to everything, he would never have to load a gun or sharpen a knife to kill another. He knew every sign too, the pattern of freckles under shadowed eyes and soft punctuation of every word, every sound as careful as honey trickles. He envisioned with a simple press of his fingertips he could rid of the marks on Jonas’s cheekbone and it would all be alright and get better somehow.

          But it never did.

          He was always told his quietude was a signal of strength but when he did not beg Jonas to disclose to him why he had so many bruises across his body or comfort his slow and tired eyelids; it was weakness and it was fear. Jonas was in the presence of everything without doing a thing.

_Does he hear the silence between us?_

 

___________________

**April 21st, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- III -----**

 

          They said goodbye. He has so many more things he would love to say, feelings he wished to express. The words were too substantial and she pressed a finger to the center of his lips, their eyes locked and he could see not a thing better. His voice wasn’t strong enough to promise her that he would see her again. God was an artist, why should he lament all the lavender and joy? Every second with her was a stroke of paint; her life was a canvas. He has her grave and he has her soul. He knows her beauty when she did know show it herself.

          Papa did not wake them in the morning, nobody did. Nathan lay in his bed, Enoch softly sleeping in boundless dream and trancing light as it filled the room and he saw God’s paintbrush work it’s magic. Joseph wasn’t in the bed lateral when he finally climbed up with gentle tears trembling down his pale cheeks. He threw the covers off of his body and his father was seated in the hallway when he opened his bedroom door. Early morning sun was flooding the boundaries of where it's sun could touch. Papa had quivering fingers nestled in the front of his scalp, grasping at a clump of graying cedar hair. Nathan swallowed, drying his eyes with his sleeve. Papa took a long moment to notice him. The most somber pools of sadness and deepest coves of emotion were swept across his visage.

          In a voice that cracked like a thousand string splitting apart together, he spoke in an expression barely above a whisper. “It’s time, Nathan, it’s time.”

          The paint was spilling over the canvas, marring the homely scene.

 

____________________

 

          Mama required years of sleep to make up for what strength she had lost, and Nathan would give her an eternity for rest. She’d awake in chiffon flesh that was eating away at color no longer present. She would be the mother who told him ghost stories knowing plenty well that they would scare him into laughter. He would relish in these memories with her even if he could not banish the others that marred him. There was a seething, throbbing wound pulsating within him, he wanted to dig his finger into the space between his chest and abdomen and stitch it up. Who’s pain would that fix exactly? He plenty well knew it would not cure what he willed it to. The room was obscure, drawn up in a disgusting array of hues that made his gut churn.

          They were all there, and he cannot recollect the last time that his family were in the same room together. Samuel and John were missing, Papa sent for them by messenger as quickly as he could; they never made it on time. Father, standing tenaciously in the corner, placed a hand over his mouth and slinked into the shadows where he wished to be. Eliza was by Mama's side, grasping her palms with an intensity of despair. Joseph, Enoch, Richie, Billie and Davy were there, strewn about the room also as if they'd been set up for a painting. Joanna was with his aunt, she was far too young for these first memories of loss. Nathan was too scared to approach her, little slivers of sunlight slipped through the cracked curtains; why must they keep them closed when he knew Mama always weakly insisted they remain open?

          Her breathing crackled through the air, she could barely move from where she was, intaking her last. Nathan remained in the back, destined not to share a final moment with his mother he believed until a voice stole breath in the dry air. “Nathan? Where is my Nathan?”

          His legs shaking he stepped forward, joining her at her bedside where her brothers peered like empty skeletons. They were damned to stand there clinging to whatever hope they may of had. The smile that encroached on the boundaries of her strength touched at pieces of himself and made them glow. She was still beautiful, clear teal eyes blinking feebly up at him and her hand reached for his arm. He recoiled at the ice of her touch but soon submitted to it.

          “Billie would you part the curtains?”, a power over her household even from a dying bed. Sunlight dripping into the room, this spring glimmer making slices across her chest. She sighed in this relief as the burning touch brushed the pale and veined skin of her wrists. She was a prisoner to his room, bound to this bed. “Enoch, what is the garden looking as on this beautiful day?”

          His older brother nodded his head tediously, the pad of his thumb swiping a tear from beneath his eyelid and leaning to gaze out the glass of the slivered window. “The tomatoes are taller, the roses are blooming.”

          “Enoch, more, please.”

          He hesitated for a moment, swallowing and turning his head back outside. “There is a breeze rustling through the trees, the crops are poking up through damp soil.” He paused, Mama nodded and he returned to her.

          “Thank you, Enoch.”

          There was a moment shared with everyone, “Chained, you will not be”, she told Eliza and his sister pressed a kiss against her cheek, mingling in their emotion together. His father left the room sometime after, the door shutting loudly behind him as he went and her eyes did not even pass over the door as he left. They had shared their moments, they’d shared years of memories, and he would live through every single one; but not this, this he would not live through this to replay in his head in the lone of his room. She stamped a kiss into all of her children's foreheads, chasing all their dark thoughts away. There was him. It was him and he was left. His mother beckoned him closer to her side again, time beginning to wind down. She could not even reach for him now, the afternoon sun was peering through the mountains, this was her sky, and that was her sun, that evening she would follow it to the line in the horizon where all thing cease to exist and blend into each other’s colors.

          “Tell me a story,” she said, the end was at a near, there were only a few minutes of consciousness left.

          Nathan bit his lip, blinking the blur from his eyes in effort to see her. “Mama, I can’t-” He cannot tell her stories, he cannot steal the last pieces of which she found life in.

          “Nathan, you must.”

_But, Mama, I can’t._

          He gulped, tears welling in his eyes and he combated his fear.

          “My stories are yours now, Nathan, cherish them.”

          Nathan locked his eyes tightly, finding himself some place where the memories still existed and his mother was to be well. In a voice a soft as a flap of a bird’s wings he began.

          _People grow without a thread of strength until they find weight to grow in the love of another. It is nourishment, feeding off of the love of others. Some times one will give all their strength away until there is not a speck left for themselves._

          Lips quivering, he watched his mother’s head face the window where the sunlight’s path was changing, slipping to another panel of earth and the light was starting to dim. She shut her eyes, the column of her throat trembling as she did do. Nathan closed his eyes too, her pulse transferring to his fingertips. He felt her all over him. Encompassing him. When he finished, opened his eyes, wiped the tears that streamed down his cheeks and squeezed her hand, she did not respond. He collapsed onto her, sobs heaving his body a hundred times over as he felt her lifeless body and grasped at those bedsheets. He did not care who heard him, and did not chose to think of every time she wiped tears from his eyes, tipped his chin up and told him not to fret. His mother died at sun down, listening to her stories on his tongue. He did not lose her once, he lost her when she was with child, he lost her in strength and he lost her every time he saw her bedroom door or the garden. She had been presently lost many years ago.

          Nathan Hale wants to reach across the sheets for her, for the real, living, breathing her; he was aimless, hopeless and estranged to himself. Was there a point to living if every beat was built upon delicacy? Time was suspended, a wound left unmended, in the hours he grieved he’ll always wonder why God chose to take her when it wasn’t time to die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> \- Timothy Dwight was one of Nathan Hale's teacher supposedly.  
> \- Elizabeth Hale died on April 21st, 1767 in her home after weakening from twelve pregnancies and births and the final birth of her daughter Susannah who also died.


	10. Chapter Ten | Haunting Paces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan copes with grief as he's never known before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is dedicated to healing, trust, forgiveness and loss. It is something I want to know.

**April 23rd, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- I -----**

 

          They buried her not long after. _We are discarding her_ , he thought, as they lowered her into a shallow grave. A tide of hope swelled in his chest, _that is not my mother_ , _my mother is live, my mother is well_. He battled with his own faith every day when he opened his eyes. He wished to see her walk through the doorway once again and often he imagined he heard her footsteps in the hall. He'd sit up in a quick movement, wiping the back of his hand underneath his eyelids only to find it was simply his father pacing through the hallways. Nathan was always told he was the one of which resembled his mother the closest. Every mirror was a curse and silence gave the most pain. He never saw his siblings in their grief, they did not comfort each other while their minds weeped.

          A few days after they buried Mama, Nathan awoke in the middle of the night. Sweat trickled in beads across his temples and his elbows shook. Upright, he forgot for a moment that nothing was right before bowing his forehead against his knee and gasping for breath. There were no screams, there were no sounds, the silence had awoken him that night. Life was just an echo in the dark. He regained his breath, unable to see in the obscurity. His feet padded to the floor and the steady pellets of rain against the window glass pierced the air delicately. There was the scent of soft, wet soil after a storm. There was not a voice and he wished more than ever to kill the silence. The wooden boards beneath his tread were vibrating. His father was in the next room, pacing again.

          This was a haunted house.

_Pacing._

          His chest was barren, there was naught left, he was all alone.

_Pacing._

          He could go to his father, he could comfort him, but what was the use of it all?

_Pacing._

          He was lost, there was not ability to sleep within him. It was him, his father’s footsteps and nothing more but the spaces between them.

_Pacing._

          He could not tell the difference between color and motion.

_Pacing._

          He slipped off of the bed, bones unable to steady himself any longer, his face lying against the frozen floorboards where he could feel the footsteps thump against his cheek. No one would ever see them like this, swimming in a sea of reticent grief.

 _Pacing_.

          Tears trickled beneath him as he was afraid to close his eyes, there he replayed all his memories of her. He considers her in silence and in the rain, he knows her in everything and often speaks her name. If God took her, why cannot God share?

 _Pacing_.

          His legs found way to his chest, and he lay still on the ground, listening to his father’s pain and wrestling with emptiness he could not comprehend. He stayed awake, succumbing to his own emotion on the ground and counting his father’s steps until morning shine entered through through the window.

          _Pacing_

          The sky cried with rain, sharing their grief.

 

**\----- II -----**

 

          Nathan could not eat for many a time after. At the dinner table his father’s place sat empty for weeks after. There was not conversation, there were not vocals, there were whispers and words spoken only in hush. He could not find sleep, he blinked until the sun rose and lapped hungrily at the room. He lay forever flattened in the darkness knowing he was not alone in his pain. It will never end, he knows, the spines of it will grow softer over time. Unlike his siblings he perfectly learned to dance in the sorrow, joy or the pain of love. The bustle of the house after death was a solemn industry.

          The feet fall grew louder down the hall from the master bedroom one night when his father emerged through the door of his own. Wiping his blurry eyes he slinked back beneath the sheets, curling towards Enoch’s sleeping form and pressing his eyes shut tightly. The frantic heartbeat in his chest pulsated in rhythm with the footsteps in the hall. They trailed from across the walkway, he felt the shadow of Papa in the doorway and he tensed. The lock unwinded and he felt as though laying before a gun barrel. The door peacefully opened and the footsteps neared his bed where he showed only the arch of his back. Fingers brushed hesitantly at his hair, stepping back before Papa swiped the blonde locks off of his forehead. The son muttered a few words and pretended to be in sleep.

          Papa lay himself on top of the covers, abdomen quivering when he wrapped an arm around his waist and tugged him closer. Papa’s body shook next to him, forehead buried into his back and squeezing him solidly. “I love you… I love you… Oh, darling, how I love you,” the words and the warm breath against his neck felt like soft cotton that was stuffed down his throat. His father was not speaking to him. “Elizabeth, I love you, and I love you and I love you.” Those verses spilling across his back felt like shattering glass, his breath going in and out as if he were wounded.

          Nathan kept his mouth shut. He could’ve turned around, he would have comforted him, but his father did not want _him;_ Papa wanted his Elizabeth, he wished for his mother and not a thing more. Words appeared so feeble in these moments they were both grappling with their misery, rolling and twisting in the censorship of a million unspoken verses from a thousand separate lovers. The depth of his father’s sorrow he did not yet fathom. She was in a hundred winds and this gentle spring rain. They will speak about her, not because they are stuck, for no passage of time will ever change that. His father’s empty sobs were the greatest silence of all, there was nothing left in them but air. He remained in a world that would not stop moving.

          Nathan could never imagine feeling nothing at all.

          He was still awake when there was not a sound and the warmth around him ceased as his father left, shutting the door easily like the snuff of a candle. His eyes reopened soon after and he was tired of the eclipse. Unable to hold it back any longer, a sob escaped out his throat like a swarm of bees, yelling at the echoes of the room before clamping a hand to his mouth. His stomach churned and he choked, clapped his knees to his chest as the fervor of his tears soaked his hand. All he owned was his remembrance, and unlike his books, these were haunting; these were _real_. His dampened tears stained his cheeks, unable to breathe any longer, feeling his ribs collapsing into one, his mother’s laugh playing in his head. The toss of her hair coloring the darkness about him.

 

**\----- III -----**

 

          It was after that night when his father tried to remake routine. His brothers and himself were sent back to school after a week and a half. That’s how long it took for everyone to forget her. Joseph no longer went to school with them; the bed beside the one he shared with Enoch was soon empty and it did not take long before Enoch occupied it. He saw Joseph as often as he saw John, as often as he saw Samuel; oh, but did he miss them. Richie walked with them in the mornings, and Billie soon too. Nathan tried protest when his father gathered them in his study and told him they were going back to school the following day. His mouth opened but his father hushed him, raising a hand that caused him to clamp shut his mouth. Enoch pinched his wrist to stop him from protesting.

          He still heard the pacing at night, all alone in his room. He pretended in these timely hours that he was the rain that went trickling across the rooftop. He glided past the glow of a lamp and a leaking window pane, he clung to the warmth of fingers that pressed the glass before losing grip and slipping away. When Nathan rose for school in the morning it was still there, forcing birds into trees and butterflies beneath leaves. He blinked away from the window, routine beginning and the cry of his heartbeat mingling with the pitter patter of the droplets. He did not expect Eliza to smile as she passed him his bread but she did, kindness settling there under drawn and fossiled eyelids. _She looks like our mothe_ r, he realized.

          He set a jaw when her stiff grin met him, he did not return the favor, resisting the urge for his lips to curl into a snarl of disgust. He grasped harder at his anger, pressing it farther into his abdomen, he felt sicker every time. Every step down the muddy road fostered this, he did not speak a word. Not even when Asher placed a hand gently on his shoulder, “Nathan, I-”. Nathan shoved his friend’s hand away, tightening his joints and swallowing hard. He kept walking without a word, pushing his bag higher onto his shoulder and leaving him behind. The rain soaked his hair to the root, placing a chill to his bone, clothes shivering with his skin and he could not tell the difference between drops from clouds on his cheeks and his own tears.

 

______________________

 

          They reached the schoolhouse and he paused, glancing up at the building and the menacing backdrop of silver clouds. He wiped his face, slapping his wet hair back and feeling ill. Nathan felt himself floating between destructive passion and nothingness. Only poison circulated in his lungs. When his brother’s came closer, Asher met his eyes for only a second before looking down and passing by him without peering up, almost afraid that he would snap at him. Nathan grabbed for Enoch’s wrist, ripping him close as he passed. Richie and Billie stopped, glancing up at Enoch before he motioned towards the door. They bit their lips and headed inside to the other students.

          Enoch met his gaze, his copper curls sticking to his forehead and his brows knitted in vehemence. He scraping his younger brother’s hand off of his wrist like a bug, he crossed his arms. “What is it, Nathan?”, he was in no way amused at this.

_I cannot go in, I cannot do it, I cannot seek refuge in my studies as you and pretend that there was nothing of occurrence, that our mother didn’t just perish._

          Enoch tapped his foot, the rain immersing through his clothing. “Tell the Master I am ill today.”

          His brother raised a brow, “You’re quitting?!”

          “Skipping.”

          Enoch chuckled, rolling his eyes and pursing his lips, “You skip stones, not school.”

          Nathan did not even break a smile or blink once. “Enoch, you must.”

          The smirk fell from his features, discovering a vulnerability from his younger brother he’d never witnessed before. “Only this once.”

          Nathan nodded, closing his eyes in the process and swearing. “Only once”, he confirmed.

          The brothers turned away from each other and he breathed a sigh of relief, a sigh of freedom.

          “Wait, Nathan-”

          Nathan curved at his statement, meeting his brother’s distant and worried gaze from the porch landing that dived through into the schoolhouse. He recessed, halting for his brother to reply. He tugged at the strings of his bag, a steady stream of rain pattering against his slicken scalp.

          “You’re not the only one-”, Enoch closed himself halfway through as if his mouth was filled with poison and foul air. “Be safe," was all he said.

          Nathan saluted softly, not revolving back even as he felt his brother’s eyes lap against his back as he peeled the corner and disappeared from sight.

 

**\----- IV -----**

 

          It continued like this for a week, he’d beg Enoch in a thousand different ways and a hundred separate curves of meaning. Everytime he promised it would be the last time, every time that was a lie. He seemed to be witnessing his own self destruction, numb to the point of being blind to his own sensations. He felt as risky as wildfire and dangerous as the serrated edge of a knife. _Why am I chasing a person I can never lay his hands on or catch?_ Nathan feigned illness as well, but it did not feel fake. He felt nausea every time he witnessed that Papa had removed his mother’s chair from the dinner table. He excused himself from the table and went to his room, collapsing in his swirling sheets. He’d stopped making the bed weeks ago but nobody noticed at this point.

          Nathan gripped his utensils so tightly some evenings they left an imprint on his hand. Papa never loved her, Eliza never loved her and his brothers never loved her; no one loved her as he did--no one. He found no comfort in the pacing and sensed the footsteps marching across his brain. He recognized the trembling in his fingertips and shivering through the mattress. He hated them more as he could not stop himself from counting every one.

          He despised the way Papa spoke to him.

          “Is there anything you took with you from school today?”

          Purposely he took long to swallow, allowing his family to sit in another deadly silence and ignored the glances between his brothers.

          “More than you could imagine.”

          He loathed the way Papa stared at him.

          Papa stopped, flaring his nostrils and sitting still. All eyes were on him and his father was the last to put the prongs back to his mouth.

          Nathan Hale was nothing but bitter.

 

**\----- V -----**

 

          The rainfall ceased and everything was left in the dripping and blooming stillness like no other. Eliza heard his feet soundlessly pad down the stairs at all hours of the night but did not say a letter through the crack of her bedroom door. Nathan snuck out of the house every evening after he believed they’d all gone to bed. He wanted to slam the door behind him a million times over as he went into the shadowed coves of their property and did not return for many hours. He left his house knowing very well his father was upstairs pacing his room again and muttering to himself verses Nathan never cared to hear, prayers that would not be listened to. He always dropped flowers by his mother’s stone before he went home to ready for school, tender lips pressed against the flesh of his finger tips and he imprinted it to the cold and mossing grave.

          One night around midnight he parted his window, climbing out and seating himself on the windowsill. He peered down, wondering, and perceiving it all at the same time. _What would happen if I jumped._

          “You’ll break your legs.”

          A voice shattered like a thunder clap behind him and Nathan nearly leaped in fright, inhaling through his nose and calming himself.

          “Oh well.”

          Enoch rubbed his eyes in exhaustion, “It’s too late, come back to sleep.”

          Moon light trickled in through the open window and he felt it’s warmth lather his neck and face. He could be where the stars are if he wished, where Mama is, or where he believed she was, somewhere beyond great pain and desolation. Enoch slipped back into his bed and yawned, “You’re not the only one…”

          Nathan turned back at this to ask what he meant, but his brother was already fast asleep. He sighed, a breath of his own exhalation escaping out into the atmosphere, sleeping in choice for the first time in many weeks.

 

**\----- VI -----**

 

          “Nathan, would you come here please?”

          There was not choice as he clicked lock the door to his father’s study behind him. Papa pulled his spectacles from his perched nose and placed them on the desktop behind him. Nathan did not take a seat among the tall bookshelfs, he remained standing with his arms crossed firmly across his chest.

          Papa waited, as if expecting him to sit down and there was a stillness in the air until he realized his son would not. “In a few months you’ll continue your studies elsewhere, you’ll no longer be attending Master Dwight’s schoolhouse.”

          Nathan’s mouth fell open and a quiver fell to his fingers but he kept them firmly locked and clenched his teeth together. “No, no-”

          His father stopped him, raising that hand again that froze all motion in the atmosphere. “You know Doctor Joseph Huntington?”, he inquired, blinking out to him for an answer. Nathan promptly nodded slowly, drinking in these words. “You’ve met him before in church.” Nathan knew plenty well of Doctor Huntington; a small, plump man with a greasy black wig and beady coal eyes, narrowed by the flesh on his face. He carried himself as if he belonged in the courts of England besides this high pitched and squeaky voice. Huntington resembled more starkly a pig than a man, Nathan thought, and he recollects whispering this to Enoch one Sunday as thye took their place in the pew. Of course Enoch shoved him in the side to quiet him. _Good bastard._

          A question emerged from his clustered throat sounding tame, “Will there be-”

          Before he finished his father interrupted him, “Only Enoch and yourself.”

          None of his older brothers took studies under Huntington, what was the meaning of this? For his older brothers they’d finished courses in the schoolhouse by the time they reached seventeen before they were shoveled out of the home on their own little experiments and lively trivials. Nathan was nearly twelve, Enoch close to fourteen. There will be no longer any walks with Asher nor Richie nor Billie in the mornings. _Would Enoch grow sick of my company?_ Nathan knows how close Enoch had grown to Matthew, both sticking to sides like a thorn that was left unplucked from layers of skin.

          “Not Billie, or Richie?”

          Papa shook his head, postulating back in his chair but keeping his head wide and alert. “Just Enoch, and yourself.”

          Confusion slathered him over, “What far? Is not the Master satisfactory?”, he rubbed the palms of his hands together, dropping them from where they were clasped underneath his arm.

          Papa let out a chuckle which at first alarmed him. “The Master is more than simply _satisfactory_ ,” he smirked, placing emphasis upon the word, dropping it after only a slip of the moment, “The Doctor will be preparing you boys for College.”

          Nathan blinked, they hadn’t ever raised the question before. “Yale?”

          Papa nodded, shutting his eyes a brief moment, “That’s not for several years, only Enoch was to go, being the most academically inclined,” his father did not sugar-coat this, and there was not need to sprinkle over the truth in his words, “Owing to the closeness and my desire of your mental strength to be used elsewhere, my pocket can make room for one more.”

          Nathan would leave home. Not only was his father forgetting his mother and pushing her into some type of oblivion, he was sending off his children miles away. Miles and miles away. He swallowed hard, a knot of tension sliding down his throat before he cleared his throat and placed his clenched fists behind his spine to conceal them.

          “But not Richie or Billie?”

          His father passed him a questioning glance, unsure of what exactly to say, his face looked almost as if another had criticized his honor, his integrity and every vitality for maintaining superficiality. “Nathan-”

          Rage pulsated through his body, throbbing through his veins and he stepped forward as his father sat up again and observed him, coming through scarlet clouds of torment. “Not Joseph, or Davy or Samuel or John?”, his brows knitted together, “Of all your children you wish to send myself away,” he scoffed, teeth slamming together, “For god sakes Papa, if you are to send your own children away from home do not torture Enoch.” Eyes narrowed when Papa stood up quickly, pinching his fingers together to contain his anger, “You forget your own wife, and our _mother_.”

          Papa did not communicate another syllable as his mouth opened. Nathan heard his father’s violence tumbling out behind him but he slammed the office door shut, not even grabbing a coat before the front door jolted against the lock. In this resentment he felt blindly through it as if drowning through the layers of hell, he crawled without legs, sympathizing with his fury and not learning a thing from such enmity. There was an ache in his chest, he felt like he’d been shot with an arrow; he almost wished he had. Time is a lie, time does not heal as is said.

          “He killed you, he killed you, Mama, _he killed you_.”


	11. Chapter Eleven | Frightened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nathan's confrontation with many and his arc.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is gifted to @katiesis on Tumblr! Their birthday was the 27th I believe and you should go wish them a belated birthday :)

**May 18th, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- I -----**

 

 

          Nathan and his father did not look at each other again for a very long time; and he did not care. It was in the closing day of two weeks of lies Enoch was forced to create when it shattered. He was prepared to bid goodbye to his brothers when the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up; before one could blame it on the cold, it was budding spring blossoms. 

          “I won’t do it any longer.”

          Nathan spun around at this. “What?”, he knew exactly what his brother meant. 

          Enoch furrowed his brow, firming the line in the lips into a little blade. As usual, Billie and Richie passed a hesitant glance back before heading into the wooden structure and starting their school day. “You cannot keep doing this, Nathan, the Master is growing suspicious and we cannot keep lying to our own father.”

          Nathan rolled his eyes, blowing a puff of hair that was dangling in his face. “Some father,” he muttered. 

          Something twisted in Enoch and he tossed his hands to the sides, unraveling them from where they were swaddled on his chest. “I cannot believe you,” he shook his head, sounding ravaged as if trying to contain a deeper anger. 

          “What is it?”

          “You’re a selfish little brat, Nathan,” they fluttered out of his mouth, releasing from him even though he had been able to hide a thousand more he wished to say but was keeping hidden for a longer while. 

          Irritated, Nathan slapped his hair back, striding forward until he was barely an inch touch from his older brother’s chest. “You want to say that again?”

          “You’re. A. Selfish. Little.  _ Brat _ ,” he hissed it out, nose tightening, there was only a moment now before the bubble of tension would implode upon itself. 

          Nathan snapped, his hands coming forward and shoving Enoch’s chest hard. Enoch only tripped backwards a little, regaining his foot and faltered before pushing him back with more force. Nathan hardened his next hustle. Enoch gave up, winding a fist that collided with the bottom of his jaw. Nathan felt his tongue crack under the weight of his teeth and he tasted blood. He retaliated, punching back with such a force that Enoch toppled to the ground, dabbing a hand to his nose in the shock and eyeing with alarm the blood that appeared on his hand where he had touched it to his face. Nathan found himself on the ground a few moments later, the wind knocked out of him as he landed on his back and his eyes blinked back. It was a scuffle, a push came to shove and they wrestled each other aggressively. 

          Enoch grunted, pinning down his shoulders to gain leverage, “You’re not the only one who’s grieving!”, he panted and weakened, “You pretend you are the only one who ever cared!” His face turned to disgust, “You sick bastard, selfish damn  _ bastard _ !”

          Nathan spat out the blood from his teeth out onto the grass before raising a knee and slamming it into his brother’s stomach enough to paralyze him as he reeled back gasping for breath and guarding his face. “You all forgot her! You all have forgotten her!”, he screamed, blood slipping in between his gums from the impact of that first punch, “Your own mother!” His knuckles rode from the ground and made contact with Enoch’s cheekbone as he winced, attempting to buck him off. 

          “What is the meaning of this?!”, Nathan did not look up as he heard the Master’s voice ringing out towards them on the grass; he did not stop hitting Enoch until there were arms ripping them apart and even then he tried to fit a good kick in; he did not stop swearing until the Master pinched his ears hard enough that the only sounds that escaped him were those of sharp and irritable pain. Enoch barely moved, dizzy, head whirling to the side where Matthew and Asher came to his side, sitting him up in the grass before aiding him to walk towards the steps. He caught Asher’s eyes once time as he peering back, he did not see a friend, or a place of comfort--he saw fear in eyes so juniper they appeared like jewels not befitting to such ragged clothing. 

          Nathan wrestled himself away and ran. Enoch’s sobs on the front porch of their schoolhouse followed him for many miles. Miles and miles. The flowers of his memory were only watered with his tears it seemed. 

 

 

___________________

 

 

          Nathan came back home at dusk. The madness of their fight was imprinted upon his body in coloring bruises. His skin was scolding and he tasted metal on his tongue. Most of all, despite the wounds across him it was the sound of his brother’s cries on the steps of that building which stung the most. Two in the morning is for the reclusive and not the faint of heart, but he was the most lonely he’d ever been in forever. Forever was a slow chime on the clock when the night is not at all dark. Every crack of the staircase at the soles of his feet was a reminder of how he was the only one there to make echoes in the silence. He saw a flood of dim light flood in a slice from underneath his father’s door and the shadow of his pacing feet paving a way through the glow. He caught a fragrance of lingering smoke in the air; he never saw his father smoke. 

          The door to his own bedroom was only parted a crack and he elbowed it open effortlessly, stepping into the room and pressing the door back. Enoch was still awake at this time, quivering under the sheets and facing the wall with a palm over his mouth to suppress himself. In the crepuscule that resounded like a thunderclap among the reticent night he heard a hiccup or a shuddering breath. Nathan shut his eyes, hurling the covers over his head and burying himself as if the smallest thing would throw him overboard. Everything he searched for only existed in his dreams while the location was not inked into any map that he knew. Nathan Hale is scared, for he knows where that may be. 

 

 

**\----- II -----**

 

 

          Just as he lost the confidence of his father, he had given away the assurance of his closest friend; the greatest brother in all the trials of life. On Sunday, the first time in three weeks since his mother had died, they all dressed and headed to church as they always used to do. It was scratching at his nerves that it was not absolute and it was all out of place like a messy collection of artwork. His family felt as a shattered piece of pottery, stuck back together by his own clumsy hands with everyone present to judge the cracks. It was a short walk to the church where their congregation nestled into their pews. Nathan never was able to stay awake during these long hours. He felt isolated, adrift a restless sea, he walked alone, stumbling behind and watching his father walk into front of him. 

_           I struggle, Lord. The world has moved on, people come and go. If you are here all along then why do I feel so alone? _

          Nathan knew it was sin but he’d forgotten in his forlorn and traveling mind to do his evening prayers; oh but soon it was not only a few occasions in a week, it became days he’d never prayed at all. Prayers before they ate, but he did not eat and prayers before he slept but he did not sleep. He did not care to ask for pardon for his curses and his swears or the beatings he’d imposed on Enoch or his behavior toward his father. He tossed and turned in between dawn and dusk where the stars glimmered with a false touch of hope. Papa held the door open for his family and his siblings passed in without even passing him a glimpse. It was at Nathan that the older man stopped, blocking a hand in front of his chest. 

          “Nathan, I’d like you to have a word with Doctor Huntington,” Papa spoke, placing a hand firmly on his shoulder as if wanting to screw him into the ground. The son lamented, his father leading him with the grasp on his shoulder away from the church. It was a blustery day, chilly winds yet blooming grass under a divulging sky. Most of the others had headed inside for the sermon but there was a group of men gathering on the lawn speaking to one another. There was not any others his age among them. 

          Weaving in between the crowd, Papa shuttled him towards a man he could vaguely remember through the fog of his memory. Papa tapped him on the shoulder. The man strutted around, chin tilted up high (almost to the firmament above) and he appeared to carry his pride upon his shoulders. Doctor Huntington passed an off minded smile, not even glancing at the boy though the gentleman couldn’t be more than an inch taller than himself. 

          Papa gestured to him with a hand, “Doctor, this is my son, Nathan.” Nathan slacked his back, straightening his posture and he twitched his eye trying to contain a smirk of disgust he wished to communicate. 

          Huntington nodded, looking a little impressed before placing his arms behind his back, “You are to be studying under me, is this correct?”, he asked. 

          Papa interjected, “Enoch is not here at the moment, I could get-”

          “I was speaking to the boy,” Huntington clarified and Papa shut his mouth, appearing a little ill-mannered and feeble. 

          Nathan passed a flicker between the two in question. Papa always said Huntington was a great friend of his, and this is how friends treat one another? Maybe when he is his father’s age he will act this way with Asher or Josiah, friends he hadn’t seen for so very long. He never really thought of how much he missed their company. 

          Huntington continued, lips always clamped tightly. “You are to attend my lessons five times a week, two miles from your own home is where I reside, you will have no trouble arriving on time, I suppose.” Nathan clutched down on his tongue for precaution, knowing every well his tendency to say something inappropriate. This of course, did not stop him. The Doctor’s squeaky voice made him wince. 

          “Sir?”, he inquired, feeling his father’s fingers tighten the squeeze on his shoulder. 

          “Yes?”

          “Will you be providing us with any sort of recess?”

          Huntington’s thin brow wrinkled, “What for?”

          “I believe if I reside too extended in your classroom listening to your voice I will come home with a headache everyday.” It was a mistake. 

          “ _ Excuse me? _ ”, he hollowed, throwing a hand to his throat in offence. 

          The irritation he saw in the Doctor’s eyes did not surpass the sibilance of his father’s voice and the harsh way he was immediately spun around. Papa’s fingers dug into his arm, “Nathan!”, he gritted his teeth, passing glances from the Doctor to his son and back again and again. A rouge complexion rose to his cheeks and he gasped out, struggling for words. “Oh, Sir, Sir, Sir, I-” he cleared his throat, “We’ll be leaving now.”

          Huntington narrowed his eyes, “I believe that would be best,  _ Richard _ .”

          His father rapidly led him away, not peeking back over his shoulder as he gripped his arm. His mouth leaned over to whisper in his ear as they quickly strided away. “Nathan! What the hell were you thinking?! Do you know what you’ve just done?”, he swallowed, shutting his eyes and gasping. “Son, this had gone on long enough, there will be no more!”, he sliced his hand through the air to emphasize his meaning and Nathan merely sighed. Papa let go of his arm when they arrived back at the entrance of the church, “You’re going to sit down, you’re not going to do anything else for the duration of the day, am I clear?”. Nathan looked away and did not answer his father’s question as his eyes bore holes into his skull that he felt dipping in and causing great pain within him. Papa shook him, meeting them face to face, “ _ Nathan!  _ Are we in agreement? ”

_           Don’t touch me.  _

          Nathan had never hated anyone more in his life. Madness lived inside of his head and his mind was possessed with more rage than he had ever experienced. The threads of his nicest clothing itched like knives and his bones tightened into the strongest steels. Tragedy exists because some are so full of rage, and rage exists when some are so filled with grief. It was terrifying a kind of deep suffering the happiest individuals bury inside of themselves. His father is blind to how much he missed Mama, cannot he see a passion inside of him and a love so deep he needed it like the air they breathe?

_           Tell me if you ever cared, if a single thought for her was once spared. _

          Nathan ripped his arm away and out of his father’s grasp so quickly Papa’s arm was still held out in the empty air. 

_           When you lie in bed, do you even remember the things she said? _

          He jutted around, spinning wildly, dazed and unsure of where to go but to listen to the guiding star within him point him to a stirling path. He felt dizzy, he felt ill, he felt faint and his ribs rattled in the hollow cavern of his chest. 

_           Does it hurt you at all to hear her name while she’s not here? _

          His father did not chase him, and Nathan in a way hoped that he would. A part of him longed to feel Papa’s hand on his shoulder tugging him back, fight their grief together and let him in on every little phrase that crossed his mind. 

      _“Nathan, we grieve in divergent ways”, Papa might say in his imagination with his arms wrapped around him and his son’s face buried into his coat like one would cradle a tiny child. “You are not alone in your love, you are not alone,_ _**you are not alone** .” _

_           It was only weeks ago, so long ago.  _

          He did not turn around. 

_           I would give the world to know. _

 

 

**\----- III -----**

 

 

          The house was shadowy, the day long departed when he finally stumbled lamely up the porch stairs of his home in the middle of the night. The windows were foggy and he opened the handle before stepping into the inner room. His silhouette worked its away around the obscurity in the tables and bookshelves. He’d mastered this art in many weeks, slinking in and out of his home without even making a sound of alert. However shedding in serenity, from the outer walls there appeared a faint glow that creeped across the wallpaper the closer he slithered through the corridor of the first floor. Nathan reached the dining room, following his gaze from detecting squeaky floorboards to a shape seated at the kitchen table--his father. 

          Richard Hale was seated at the kitchen table with his hands clasped so tightly together the flicker of the candle light inflamed his features. The ivory of his protruding knuckles glistened in all the tinctures enveloping them. Nathan hitched, a hope draining from his chest and he could expect nothing less. Papa shot up from the table quickly, the legs of his chair scraping loudly against the floorboards. Nathan swallowed, taking a step back in alarm as his father sweeped towards him like a ghoul, eyes narrowed like daggers. A bottle of brandy stood open in the table and the amber liquid frothed behind the jailed glass chamber. 

          Papa reached him, lapsing and standing above him. “What the hell have you been?!”, he roared, fists clamped at his sides, seething to the bone in anger. 

          Nathan had no reply. Caught off guard his mouth opened and closed several times over like a fish before he clamped it shut and blinked inconsistently. The buzz of the candle engulfed him, making Papa appear as something from one’s nightmares. For the first time in his life, he was frightened of his father. His voice faltered; his one great tool. He tried to sew his lips shut and toss away the needle. 

          “What’s it to you?”, Nathan countered, pointing his chin up to meet his father’s stern gaze. His eyes appeared like two tiny stones, blackened over by misery to the point of not seeing past his own mistakes. 

          Papa growled and gritted his teeth together. “How dare you speak to me that way!”, he hollered, the expanse of his lungs causing the liquid in the brandy jar to quiver and ripple out. “It’s been difficult since your mother passed, we are all handling it in a variety of ways,” this brought a rare softness to his eyes and he keened in for those these words after so very long. “But you must stop this Nathan! You have brought nothing but shame into his home and I have had  _ enough _ !”

          Nathan scoffed, “You, Papa? Grieving?”, he set his jaw, “Yourself and everyone in this home has done nothing to forget her and everything she was.”

          Papa looked taken back, bewildered and a flicker of sadness wavered there with confusion glinted over his ashy, blackened eyes. “You believe you are the only one who ever cared?”

          Nathan did not nod in response this time. 

          His father wheeled around, back weakening and his feet tripped, stumbling into the table. The items on it clattered and rocked across the surface. “I loved her! I fucking loved her, Nathan!”, he spun around, panting wildly, his chest heaving through the thinness of his pasty shirt and rolled up sleeves. “My wife, my love, the only life I  _ ever _ had!”, he screamed, raising a fist and slamming it on the tabletop, the brandy bottle tipped and swayed but did not fall over. “To tell me I didn’t love her…” he paused, “When is the last time you saw me sleep, huh? Do you know Nathan how long it's been since I haven't spent the entirety of the night pacing my entire room step by step in an effort to rediscover a phantom of her footprints or a waft of her scent?”. Papa’s eyes were scarlet, puffy and exhausted with pain. “You know nothing, Nathan, you are foolish as a child.” He’ll never forget that snarl of disgust; disgust for him; for his own. 

          His son charged forward, blinding rage flowing throughout his veins, “If you loved her why did you kill her?”

          Papa’s greasy hair played in the shine of the candle and Nathan was surprised the alcohol bottle had not toppled over yet. “What did you say?”, his voice lowered to an almost incoherent tone. 

          “That’s right,” Nathan firmed his eyes, fists clenching and unclenching. “You know what you did, you know exactly what you did to her,” his shoulder tensed, “if you hadn’t put yourself upon her so many times, put her up with child when you knew she was sick-”

          “Shut up!”, Richard Hale squeezed his eyes shut, slamming his knee into the tabletop and pressing the palms of his hands over his ears, breathing heavily to block out the words. In a flash he’d reached over, grasping at an empty cup where the alcohol once sat, “Don’t you ever sat that again! How could you  _ever_ say that !”

          Nathan retaliated, remaining in place and his voice rising higher, scratching at his vocal chord like hot iron. “She was sick! She was sick and you put yourself upon her so many times and now she’s dead!”

          Papa squeezed the glass with his pale knuckles, a loud shriek escaping him before he threw the bottle, the glass flashing slowly in the air and Nathan ducked weakly as it shattered against the mantelpiece behind him, dissolving into a thousand tiny shards. The crash of the glass rang in his ears. Nathan felt the shards in his hair, he knew them on his neck, down his coat and at the soles of his shoes. 

          Nathan stamped his foot in protest, shaking the glass from his hair and the trembling out of his hands and legs. Nathan shouted over and over as his father continued to guard his ears from hearing these verses. “You killed my mother! You killed her!  _ You killed her! _ ”.

          It happened quick as a flash of light and after that flicker nothing was ever the same like a large comet crashing to earth and obliterating it all.

          Papa twisted his neck towards him, stomping at him and the glisten of his hand lept from his waist. It was quick and callous as the agony of a million tiny needles. The palm of his father’s hand came into contact with his cheek. Nathan gasped for a moment, shock flooding over him before the pain and he hesitantly raised a hand to press the warm, tender flesh of his cheek where he may find a smouldering imprint. His father had struck him.

          Papa breathed heavily, seething in the adrenaline before his pupils shortened and he nodded soberly down at his son, holding his cheek. Sharp tears entered Nathan’s eyes and he choked out a tiny noise that was indistinct of any specific meaning. Neither of them can undo what they’ve done, they cannot sing a song that is already sung or speak in tongues and take back words. He did not cling to the things that made him bleed, he’d rather feel pain in a stranger place than peace in a familiar one. 

          His father reached out, the features of his complexion shifting and melting together. Their eyes met and Papa saw his fear, dark, heavy, present. Nathan stepped back, quivering in fright, hair hanging in his eyes and a waiver of fear twinkling in his eye. 

          A hand reached towards him, slowly, frighteningly, “Nathan…”

          Tears stung his eyes and he backed away towards the stairs, stumbling back onto the steps as his ankle caught on the first. “Don’t touch me,” he struggled to breathe and he pulled himself back up, “Don’t you  _ ever _ touch me.”

_           I will never forgive you and you will never forget from this moment on. _

          He sprinted up the stairs, the sting of his skin, the ache in his chest and the loneliness of his soul. The bedroom door slammed behind him as he reached it, panting as his back met the wood paneling and he slinked to the floor in a heap, sobs wrestling out of his throat and an ugly hiccuping throttling him in abuse. Through the floorboards where he lay he could hear the violence of his father spilling out in yells and shouts, the sound of glass shattering into a thousand tiny pieces and the crash of their kitchen table toppling over to the floor; the thump of a hundred books, papers and eleven upheaved lives. 

          A hand felt out for him in the darkness. It touched him without truly reaching him. Arms wrapped across his fallen body and tugged him close, wrapping him against his chest as he cried. He suffered in the silence without his mother and his brother curled his hands through his hair on the floor of their bedroom with sobs so painful they made his bones ache and his teeth chatter. It was that scariest part of loneliness, that it made him realize he’d lost himself. A thousands words won’t bring her back, and Nathan knows this because he’s tried, neither could every tear, she left behind the most joyous memories and remarkable pain; he never wanted any memories, he wished only for her. 

          It was a minute later when a second pair of arms grasped for him, a third and then a fourth; Billie, Richie and Davy surrounding him in his agony. Eliza came in last, gathering them all up together. Desire to them was a second death, swift dying and evaporated of all energy. His mother’s unknown fragrance mingling with them quickly in a naked room. 

_           Touch me with your hand, my dear. Pull me close against your chest. Hold me in your arms, my dear, my heartbeat wants a rest. Allow my hands, my dear, to caress your skin and sense your warmth. Let me lie curled, my dear, against your back and you can touch mine.  _

          His siblings did not say a word and it was more than what he ever needed to hear. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> \- Yes, Doctor Huntington was a teacher of Nathan.


	12. Chapter Twelve | Nearer To Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben is ready for Yale and Nathan struggles with memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In two days is my beloved Antoine's birthday. This chapter is dedicated to them because they truly are the dedication to all of my writing anyways. Wish them a happy birthday because I treasure them so dearly. I, Maxime, will always love you.

**September 2nd, 1767**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          It was in the fall when the President of Yale College came to visit his father. Reverend Naphtali Daggett was a gentleman, an imposing figure with a limited sense of humanity within him that Ben could sense hidden underneath all of those legends, stories and waistcoats. His carriage looked exquisite, more marvelous than anything Ben had seen since his father took him into New York City. The wheels rolled over the terrain and Ben pressed his nose eagerly against the window from the upper story. William was downstairs, John at his side with his fingers smudging the glass, Isaac and Samuel lingering on top of their beds clearly unamused. Samuel lay on his back, throwing a ball up into the air and catching it again with the same hand without much effort. 

          Ben observed as a man with a flowing, black coat sweeped like death in a murky trench coat that brushed the ground he strode to the porch. Papa waited on the wood with open greetings. Samuel sat up on his bed and followed his older brother when Ben left the room and climbed down the stairs to the second floor. The door was still open when Reverend Daggett stood postulated in the doorway. Ben gulped, not passing a lingering glance away from him as he heard Samuel’s footsteps behind him slow to a stop above him. Father  shifted around, shutting the door behind him as Daggett removed his hat and held it underneath his arm as he erected himself unmoving without a smile or even a flinch. His father simpered, turning towards him and leaving William standing there in front of him.

          “Sir, this is my son, Benjamin,” a hand was placed on his own shoulder and he did not move. 

          Daggett did manage a minuscule grin, parting away from his introductory to William and shaking Ben’s hand. It fell back to his side breathless. “This is your son I’ve heard so frequently of?”, he asked pointedly. 

          Papa nodded in exasperation, passing away from him and Samuel was introduced. Ben was quite used to this by now, none of his brothers were much for academica. It was him who proved to be the most inquisitive in his studies and versed in lectures. Ben at thirteen relished in his books, yearned in Latin and mathematics. William was gentle, a countenance of purity and softened degree, so much as their mother was in mannerism that one couldn’t help excuse him for immature actions. Samuel had only been in his father’s schoolhouse for a few months and at almost twelve already proved himself not fit for books; a clown, bored easily under the pressure of these scholarly duties. It was a strange sight to behold him fitting in perfectly with older boys, none of them his age, Caleb Brewster, Austin Roe and the lot Papa clustered as “miscreants”. John was only ten years old, Isaac merely five. 

          Daggett traced his father to the kitchen where Mama was waiting, curling her fair locks behind her ear and placing hands on her hips, treading forwards to meet him in the narrow space. His brothers went to the table and Ben lingered for a time in the hallway, leaning against the wall and sighing. He wasn’t sure if he was prepared for another night of flattery from his father, all eyes gawking him from every angle. Perhaps, what he feared most was that deep down it was not pride but envy from his brothers. Ben swallowed, lifting off the wall and joined his family for dinner in the company of President Daggett who he sat across from. 

 

**___________________**

 

          They were tested. Everyone of his father’s students from the oldest to youngest. That night after, Ben hid on the stairs, peering through the bannister and pressing an ear out for any words he could catch from his father’s study. _How did I do?_ Ben does not know. _How did anyone do?_ Halfway through the exam he became lost on a page when Jonas’s knee brushed his thigh accidentally and he quivered all over in a fervor a jitters. He had stretched the collar of his coat up to shield his neck containing that crepe tone inflaming his ears. 

          Jonas was by his side when they exited the schoolhouse in the late afternoon. He craned his neck in discomfort, “that was terrible." He grumbled, hunching his back and half-lidding his eyes in annoyance. Ben respired, placing his hands in his pocket. Jonas placed a soft glance at him, “How did you think to do?”, he grinned, “You always do well, perhaps that was a stupid question."

          Ben quieted him, raising a hand up, “No, no, I believe I did just alright." Benjamin would never tell him. He left soon after when Jonas’s fingers cupped his arm and he felt the breath catch in his throat. He trudged away, muttering a farewell under his breath and abandoning Jonas on the dirt road. 

          That night, after dinner, again with the visiting president, he tossed in his bed before finding sleep useless and slipping onto the floor. Anxiety churned in his stomach, his feet padded gently on the floorboards as he opened his bedroom door and light pooled into the room through a crack. He e shut it behind him in order not to wake his brothers. The warmth of the house settled in him, he kneeled close and out of sight on the stairwell. Ben listened, languishing and catching only a few words as he heard papers rustling on the table while his father and Daggett shifted through the tests into the late hours. It was not an ordinary exam, it was Daggett’s analysis of his father’s teaching, it was Daggett’s opinion on who was fit or prepared for Yale and who was better off training a few years more and trying for King’s College. Ben never found King’s appealing. 

_           “Kings is handsome, what’s there not to enjoy?”, Jonas inquired as they treaded over the terrain towards the river in the snarling path of overgrown and browning thorns.  _

_           Ben furrowed his brow, eyes scanning the ground where he was stepping. “My father graduated Yale, it has always been planned for I and one of the brothers to attend”, he replied.  _

_           “Yes,” Jonas shook his head in agreement, “However, you attend Kings and you’ll be closer home." He winced as a thorn entered his thumb and he placed it between his front teeth, “Nearer to me.” _

_           Ben went into interlude, deviating round and facing his friend, “What’s to say you won’t be with myself at Yale?” _

_           Jonas sighed, a deep, tired and exasperated breath that felt as though the trees were slowly drawing in breath with him. “I have not such… opportunities," he rubbed the back of his neck nervously and adjacent his eyes went onto the path. “You have a few years till Yale, Ben, I shall enjoy you while I still have you.” He smiled lightly to disquiet the tension before it disappeared and he began to march once again.  _

_           Ben pushed out a hand and Jonas whipped around, glimpsing briefly down at the hand on his shoulder. Their eyes met for an eternity, “You’ll always have me, Jonas.” They continued to walk in silence even as Ben felt the tips of his ears burn and their palm slid down his arm, around his elbow, before releasing as their fingers brushed together.  _

          Benjamin collapsed in the thought of this and this shared scene; he will miss him even as he is standing right beside him.

 

__________________

 

          The next morning Jonas passed him a sly beam before sitting next to him and straightening his posture. President Daggett swiped a hand to press his wig back before sitting down; there he sat, for the remainder of the school day until they were released. Ben caught his father’s eye as he organized his books in his arm and was prepared to follow Jonas out of the door. 

          “Benjamin?”, Papa addressed, curling a finger towards him, “Reverend Daggett requests a word with you.” Jonas flashed him a questioning look but Ben ultimately whispered for him to go on without him. Jonas reluctantly did this.  The melancholy overtook him again and he swallowed, waiting his silence in a chair as the remainder of his mates piled out of the door and the door shut. It was still in the air until his father eyed Daggett out of the corner of his vision ad cleared his throat, catching Ben’s attention once again. 

          Daggett commenced, leaning forward to address him. “In the exams you and the other students participated in, you were the highest in regards to ultimate score.”

          A weight shifted off of his shoulders and his lungs found breath where they had been clamped down by worry. “The highest score?”, it was a lie to admit he was astonished but a little shock mingled there with pride. 

          “You meet to an exceptional degree the requirements for application to Yale,” Daggett explained. “At only thirteen too, Benjamin, it is rather noteworthy.”

          Ben only managed a slight wince and chewed on the flesh of his inner cheek, “Does this mean-”

          “Yes, Benjamin, you passed the entrance to Yale.”

          For odd reasons, this was not what he was most concerned this and he looked to his father, “William, Samuel…?”, he left it open ended, “Anyone?”

          Papa and Daggett met eyes before turning back to him, “William meets in age only, Samuel…” he clicked his tongue, “...needs extreme work and training I am afraid."

          Ben inclined  in his chair, breathing escalating, “Would I be leaving now?”

          Daggett nodded, “You meet in time and age, Benjamin.”

          This caught Papa off guard and he blinked back a few, stepping up and gliding towards Ben. He placed a firm hand on his son's shoulder and ripped him up quickly, uprooting him from his seat. “I would have to discuss this first, Sir.”

          His father bit his lip as he led him out of the door, not saying a word as they left the schoolhouse and entered their home minutes later. Jonas was waiting for him but did not come after him as his father compelled him into their home. 

 

**____________________**

 

          It was late, overcast, dreary and seldom even a crease of light passed through the room. Ben was seated in an armchair, sucking in his cheeks and waiting for his father to speak even a word and break the silence. Papa collected him after dinner, wiping his mouth on a cloth and beckoning to him. Ben peered to his mother who nodded and excused him from the table. Now the doors of the study were shut, a skinny glass paling in the dim light. Papa paced the room, the wine in his glass sloshing back and forth with every turn. 

          Ben’s nails tug nervously into the arm of the chair, arching his back, “Papa-”

          He was silenced almost immediately and his father recessed to scold him in a harsh, nervous voice, “Ben, not now.”

          Growing unnerved Ben attempted these actions again, “Papa, please, why have you gathered me here?”

          The pacing discontinued and he flopped into his desk chair, rubbing his fingers on the bridge of his nose and sighing gently as he set the glass of wine down on the desktop. It was not touched for another sip the remainder of the evening. “You’re not going to Yale,” he proclaimed in the croaky voice that was barely above a subtle whisper. 

          Ben shot up, “What?”

          Papa faced him, cobalt eyes twinkling in the flame like the sun reflecting on beautiful seas. “You’re not dashing off to Yale, Benjamin.”

          Ben appeared confused, felt perplexed and for good reason. “Papa, we’ve been planning this since I could breathe, whatever do you mean?”

          “Not yet,” was all he retorted, setting his chin on his knuckles and staring out into the cimmerian at his glass cases. “Your mother and I need you here, you cannot go to Yale quite yet.”

          A wave shuddered over him, “What of William? Of Samuel? Of-”, he pulled off and Papa revolved, inching over to him and nictating his eyes to gently answer all of his questions. It all came to him, velvety and agile like a leap of color. “None of them are coming with me,” Ben realized, “aren't they?” Papa shook his head and the thought of Yale swelled in his brain, it was larger than before, more dangerous. In such moments of lucid clarity he felt an enormous amount of pain, “It was never your intention, was it?”. 

          Papa opened his mouth and the words filtered through him, “You were to go always alone.”

 

**___________________**

 

          Ben left his father’s study soon after and his mother was still at the kitchen table, half asleep and waiting. Her pale skin resting on her open palm and her hair held back with a ribbon from her glistened neck. Mama heard the patter of feet in the hall and awoke, straightening as he approached her, stealing the seat next to her and pressing the heels of his hands into his eye sockets in pressure.  He swallowed a knot of tension-- _ of fear _ \--in his throat and his voice was meek and feeble in their surrounds, barely audible. “Mama--can’t go without them-- _ I can’t _ ”, he exhaled heavily and clenched his jaw. Ben felt a hand brush the undercut of his jaw gently, softly and with every intention of delicacy to pull his hands off of his own face. The pads of her fingers made him face her and she admitted a tough smile, brushing a brunette curl behind the shell of his ear. Ben reclined into her hand, pressing his face into her's and shutting his eyes. 

          “Courage, Ben, you have so much, it will be time for you to utilize these strengths in point of your weakness.” She tugged him closer to her chest, clinging to her son with every tendril, “Stand tall in the storms of your fear.”

          Benjamin Tallmadge clung to these words as if he had nothing else left in his being or his living. Ben loved his mother as one could love the countenance of no other. She collapsed the next day in the kitchen, he reached for her but did not have strength to hold her. William called their father and she was whisked to bed. She was ill for so long after and never did she get fully better. They all counted the days as they visited her in bed.  This brief moment shared a day before she began to travel the road to demise, light and restitution remains longest in his mind. And, maybe, if Papa had told him earlier that she was never to be better, that she was so utterly weakened in the mind to no recovery, perhaps, he would've known to hold on to what he knew, to cling to her while she was alive and well. In all those times where she could dance and she had strength to laugh, the darkness in which worry furrowed his father’s visage for the entirety of the weeks she was in her dangerous moods, difficulties only pale in comparison. 

          Of many things Ben gained from his mother he feared most retrieving her blackened moods where she could not rise from bed and every breath was a struggle to live and let go. For many months he skimmed back her room, too frightened to see her in her weakness; if only he had known she was to expire at some point so soon. When it was over, all he yearned for was another moment. For now, Ben clings only onto the artifacts of a naive thirteen year old who does not know in months his mother will die.  He returns home in the evening, passing by her room and pausing, tempted to open it a crack and visit. He shakes these thoughts away and goes to his room, shutting the door behind him. Mama will always be there for visits, he once thought. Ben will curse himself in a year to come. 

 

____________________

**September 30th, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- II -----**

 

          It was still dead. Her life was love and labor as his heart felt so crushed and sore. In tears he awakes with only a fading semblance of her in his dreams that shifts to dust in the air. He had watched her sinking and he felt her words shape on his tongue. His lips cannot speak well how much he cared, how much he loved and how much he yearned. God was the only witness in a home that was always now in desolation. Nathan continues to climb up the stairs in the dark like a winding case of enclosing despair. These walls were no home, a place for him to rest his weary head with riches that cannot buy happiness to fill those empty holes in his chest.  Nathan thinks of her often, every day. It was true, that in reality he would grieve forever and still never learn to live with it; it had learned to live with him instead. It built walls of the tallest bricks and enclosed him within. A body like an iron gate that he could not reach around the walls of. Mama broke things when she left and was of cracks so small one cannot visibly fix. 

          Of their small group Josiah was not longer, barely among their party, only in the afternoon where he met them looking grimy, exhausted with rough callouses scarring the knuckles of his hands. As much as Enoch was depressed to see Matthew go, he soon traveled the long and weaving path to College of New Jersey an institution he found favorable to him. He left two months ago and Enoch worried he would never see him again; he would, on a rare Christmas where Matthew was home and visited him in open arms. 

          In Nathan’s home, every creak of a floorboard was the loudest shout in the dark and just the rare cough was the only sense of voice he heard at all. He’d never see how, in form, Eliza looked entirely as his mother once did, hovered in front of the kitchen fire with her sleeves rolled up to the elbows and bead of sweat trickling across her temples. Papa never joined them for dinner and if he did, nobody spoke a word. He’d ask Enoch of Doctor Huntington’s teaching methods, inquire to Richie how the schoolhouse was holding up and Billie how he was coming about his studies in an unfamiliar environment; he’d manage a feeble smile to Eliza for dinner or bounce Joanna upon his knee and ruffle Davy’s hair with his hand. In all these interactions not a single was spared for him. 

_           “But you must stop this Nathan! You have brought nothing but shame into his home and I have had enough!” _

          Seated there at the dinner table Nathan set his fork down, an ill feeling taking him over.  Nathan saw him out of the corner of his eye but did not make a single gesture towards him. In this present he’d been taught through the past that he’d never forget things that were his undoing--no matter how much he struggled to rid himself of it. 

_           “You know nothing, Nathan, you are foolish as a child.” _

          These words swim dizzy in front of his eyes and he remembers the curves of his father’s mouth when these came admitted into the air.  _ Forgive me, Papa, as I stumble and fall. _ While his nerves had been shot, shaken throughout his body and scattered around him, his father was still standing, postulated as ever as if nothing had ever happened. Nathan excused himself from the table, clamoring up the stairs, knowing he will never meet his father’s eyes the same way.  If he could back, Nathan would of done it differently that day. His dreams were shorter, smaller and he rests his legs out of the window frame, setting his forehead against the pane and the early autumn wind brushed warmly across his cheeks. He tries to forget that he cannot disregard the pain of a thousand needles across his face and the catch of his father’s nails on the surface of his skin. Their relationship and time were once beautiful, if not marvelous, and in this universe they’ll naught be the same. They were sharp and smooth as glass, glistening beautiful in the light until they felt each other’s shards. 

_           This is how it operates, and this is our change.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> \- When Benjamin Tallmadge was twelve or thirteen he was accepted into Yale but his father thought him too young.


	13. Chapter Thirteen | Tightened

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben and Jonas. Nathan finally gets some happiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is gifted to @nathanhales on Tumblr! Their birthday was three days ago, thank you for commenting and being super sweet! I would also like to dedicate this chapter to Benjamin Tallmadge whose birthday was on the 25th. I hope whenever he is, Nathan Hale is there and they are finally happy together as it always should of been.

**October 16th, 1767**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          On a Thursday Papa blocked Ben and Jonas before they headed out of the schoolhouse door and asked Jonas to dinner. The boys passed a dismantled look between one another before Ben grinned, prompting Jonas to nod graciously in return. It was not to say Jonas had never been in his home before--he had--it was knowing his father’s curious nature there would be a thousand questions for Jonas to answer and none of which he was prepared for. The sun had descended in the sky when he caught Jonas’s elbow and led him to the kitchen for dinner. The dining room table was dimly lit, three candles flicking tamely on the tabletop.

          Papa cleared his throat, bringing attention to himself, and so he did receive. “Jonas, do you have any plans for college?”, he inquired and Ben mentally rolled his eyes in retort.

          Jonas swallowed his bite before setting down his utensil on the plate. “Not for the moment, Sir,” his eyes flickered nervously down to his plate and Ben observed him out of the corner of his eye.

          Papa contemplated this for a moment reticently. “If it is regarding your father’s current economic status I am sure you may be able to attain a scholarship of a sort,” he smiled sincerely, “Benjamin may enjoy your company at Yale.”

          A morsel of cabbage caught in his throat and Ben covered his mouth with his palm as his eyes widened. He spoke back in a meek and gentle voice, choked by his dilemma, “Why plan his future so early, Papa?”

          His father shrugged, simpering and turning away. “I am merely inquisitive.”

          Samuel piped up from across the table, “Father, you never have Austin or Caleb over for meals, why Jonas?”

          Papa let out a laugh that made their mother smirk from across at the other head of the table, “Not over my will would allow those ruffians into my home.”

          William chuckled and nudged John who pursed his lips shut as Samuel narrowed his eyes in disgust. The corner of Jonas’s crepe lips parted a little and Ben brushed his hair back to cover his ears to clench his teeth.

          “How is your father, Jonas?”, Papa investigated once again, wiping his mouth with a cloth and scanning the boy at his table with peculiarity. “Besides yourself, I rarely witness him in church in recent.” Jonas’s jaw tightened and the flame of the candle nictated across his pale cheekbones, igniting every pale, iron freckle it brushed with its colors. “He is well, isn’t he?”

          Jonas never spoke of his father as far as Ben was concerned, never did he mention him nor speak his name and it was more common to hear wind of his deceased mother than his living father. Jonas slapped back a strand of ebony hair hanging in his vision before placing his hands underneath the wooden table in his lap whilst rubbing his fingers restlessly together. “He is quite alright,” he admitted in a soft voice without much punctuation. His voice shuddered and Ben’s eyes fell to their hands, reaching a finger forward and swiping at a magenta bruise that was swaddled around his wrist.

          Papa would not quiet, sitting up straighter, “I hope you both are well under the circumstances of your absent mother.”

          Jonas froze, shoulders tensing so dangerously that Ben reached under the table and placed a hand on his thigh to disquiet the tension that was aching throughout every bone and hardening every muscle. “He has been different since her expiration,” he murmured as Ben dug his fingers into the skin of his inner thigh. Jonas respired, exhaling and shutting his eyes gently in calm. The shades of many sunsets shone across his eyelids in this relaxation.

          Papa observed them for the remainder of the evening but did not probe with any more questions.

 

_____________________

 

          Jonas lay on the grass beside him, hips matching in rhythm on the soil. Night had long clouded the sky in its hues and moisture clung to each strand of glass. There was not wind in the air and it was tranquil. Still as now he knows there is someone out there who was trodding upon them as one does a dirt path, like the certainty of tides he still rose. He was not transparent to Ben and that was the real pain, not knowing what he was really enduring or how many weights he was holding up within himself. Ben had an appetite to show Jonas  the most damaged piece of his soul just so he could show him how it shines like gold. The stars went on for an eternity, as long as he could be there and listen to him while underneath them. They both do not rhyme, nor do they always lift their tongues smoothly. They speak in oceans of conversation and dialects, they paint extravagant canvases with gestures alone. They were poetry just the same. Ben yearned for him entirely and knew the steps of his vertebrae leading across his spine, charting the topography of his anatomy.

          “I could always steal whoever is hurting you,” Ben remained lying down underneath the sky with the shifting world above him, “I will wrap them in linen and bury them somewhere where they can never locate you.”

          Jonas chuckled gently and Ben felt his laugh radiate through him as he was beside him feeling his warmth. “I would introduce you to every section of myself if I could.”

          “Why so many secrets?”

          Jonas sat up, peering down at him where he was heightened and meeting his gaze. His hair blended with the stars above and he was brighter than all of them combined. “Benny,” he began, leaning on his elbow and studying him, “there are things much larger than ourselves that we many never even comprehend.”

          Ben fell closer to him, grabbing for Jonas’s wrist and tugging it closer to him, the frozen sensation of their skin in the loops of his fingers. “You’ll never tell me where you get these,” Ben glimpsed down to the tiny prick of healing wounds across his fingers, “Why always are you so hesitant to be home?” The column of the boy’s throat quivered and he glanced away, not brushing away the hair that fell to his forehead and hid his tired eyes. They appeared heavy with weight and so full of life in the same ways they were dead. Jonas’s lips parted slowly before his teeth shut together again. He started to speak but Ben placed a finger to his lips, meeting his wavering and anxious eyes. “We have time,” his hand landed back onto the ground, “You can tell me in minutes, or in hours, in weeks or days, and I will even wait years for you.” Ben pushed the hickory hair behind his ear and their eyes met again. It was clearer, rising there were the sparks of a thousand storms and clouds of all their desires swirling in instability. “Not a moment will I be weary. When you are ready, Jonas.”

          Jonas nodded slowly, “I am not sure where my home is or if I have one.” He sighed, laying back down, “It is out there, walking in this universe, I know it is there.”

          “You will not have to tread the entire planet to discover something that is right beside you.”

 

_______________________

**October 24th, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- II -----**

 

          Nathan culled the comforters closer to Davy’s chin and his wide eyes blinked up at him. His brother was not in the slightest bit tired, Richie had dozed off minutes ago and Billie was drifting in and out, not paying the slightest attention and facing the wall. The older pressed a kiss to the child’s forehead.

          “Goodnight, Davy”, Nathan stepped away from the bedside, careful not to bounce onto any creaking floorboards and wake his sleeping brothers as he prepared to head back to the room he shared with Enoch.

          A voice stopped him, however. “Nathan, wait.”

          So he did, and he spun back around, a little annoyed as the scalding wax from the candle was beginning to melt onto the surface of his skin in burn. “Yes?”, his voice was tired and his eyes felt sunken with the desire to sleep.

          The child sat up, nudging away the comforters that were moments ago carefully placed onto his body. He seemed to be hesitate to speak again and Nathan grew impatient, drawing closer and sitting upon the end of the bed, resting a hand underneath his chin. Their sunless eyes melted into his features, “Will Mama ever come home?”

          The question caught him off guard and his own shoulders sunk, dripping off of him just as the candle wax was slipping off of the silver pan. If he knows himself at five years old he knows he believed just the same as his little brother did, that the world was an ideal place. Seven years has passed since then, and even though he’s learned so much more, he would give everything to see through those innocent eyes again. But for Nathan, no matter how deep his tongue searched could not find words to lie, to repeat and dismiss every sensation of agony he had felt in these months since her death.

          “Mama is never coming home.”

_What was I supposed to tell him?_

 

_______________________

**November 25th, 1767**

Setauket, New York

**\----- III -----**

 

          It became more frequent, more often Jonas would meet him with merlot cracks freshly bleeding onto his chin and spreading from his lips. Everyday a new violet bruise circulated his eye and his pale freckles were still constellations becoming invisible by wounds. Ben’s stiff fingers always reached forward, depressed mildly on the marks before Jonas flinched underneath his touch. His breath caught in his throat at these sights and with firmly clenched lips, he would dag a cloth of cold water underneath his chin from a small water pail behind his house.

          “They’re getting worse,” Ben remarked one day as he stood over Jonas, patting lightly at an incision that carved out above his lip with the greatest care. Every time his friend jolted or winced, he scolded him, gripping his head still in retaliation until they finally complied.

          Jonas rolled his eyes sarcastically. “They’ve always been worse,” he retorted and Ben rubbed his hands together, folding the cloth away beside them that was now covered in scarlet.

          “All better?”

          Jonas beamed weakly but did not reply. It was more than what was needed.

 

**___________________**

 

          It was always worse, he said; never was it worse than this.

          Ben waited patiently in his seat at the start of class, tired and waiting. He expected Jonas to rush in any moment and steal the seat next to him with a smirking grin, combing his hair furiously with his fingers from the blustery walk from his house. Ben waited, even as class started, he waited. He heard the door open and a few near winter leaves dyed and frostbitten from the seasons enter the door but nothing more--not what he had wished. He heard their footsteps occasionally even though Jonas was not there. He swore he daydreamed him striding through the schoolhouse door a thousand times over again and it never came. Butterflies quivered in his bones, even when he was ill, Jonas never missed a lesson. Jonas didn’t arrive the next day, as Ben hoped. Nor the next day, or the next and so forth for three more. Ben clinged to his Latin, his poetry and his art because he desperately did not wish to be alone. He wished it could explain the things that he could never comprehend himself. It was confliction, just how over the edge humans could be brought to when the most miniscule artifacts do not fit perfectly together. Nobody spoke his name and it was as if he had never truly existed. Ben was determined, he would seek out Jonas himself.

          Ben had seen Jonas’s house a few times before, a large wooden structure with two floors and a strange scene to have such a large home for only two people. The shady, green shutters were always closed, clouding the house in a obscure aura of mystery. The slanting porch gave the illusion of a sloppy and aloof nature. He gathered his things when his father dismissed them, placing them into his book bag and heading out of the door first. He followed the fork in the road that divided two separate paths from his home and that of another. Ben wasn’t hesitant, determination shaking him to the core as he holstered his bag higher on his shoulder and battled the chilling winds rattling his bones in their fervor. The house grew larger in the distance, the wooden posts holding up the foundation appeared to resemble the bars on a prison cell more than anything. The slowing of the darkened day tumbled in the backdrop of the home, clouds sprinkled behind a shadowing chimney with carob bricks that were reaching towards the heavens in desperation. For the first time since he’d conjured up the idea, worry reassembled the cojection within him. They had barely any land attached to the home, nothing but the lonely frame itself and a sense of dread that embodied every floorboard.

          Silence. Pebbles crunched underneath his feet as he stepped off the dirt path and began a tread towards the walls with the wind whipping enlarged weeds against his ankles. He knew not where Jonas’ bedroom was, nor what he was doing here. Ben swallowed his anxiety and continued to work his way around the perimeter of the home.

_“I sleep not where the sun descends.”_

_“Why?”_

_“The lights awaken me only to remind me that I unremittingly exist.”_

          He thought of this for a moment, nibbling on his lip before heading in the opposite direction of the fading sky lights that were shifting to night now. There was one window on the second floor, the only glass that was not covered by shutters and hiding out the daytime. Ben leaned over, skimming his fingers through the rustling grass and grasping at a stone. He tossed it up and into his palm several times over before lunging it at the window. It bounced, dipping before landing elsewhere. This occurred several times, gathering another tiny stone, and, in repeat, continuing to throw them at the window.

          No one came.

          A breathy sigh escaped his lips and Ben stopped himself, running a hand through his curls and pulling softly in exasperation. Perhaps, he’d never see him again, and no matter how he tried to thrust this thought from his head it came, over and over. Jonas will appear only in his imagination.

 _“Color me in,”_ Ben will ask, placing a paintbrush in his ivory hands, _“I am fading.”_

          Before leaving he threw one more rock at the window and turned away. Only a feeling of absolute helplessness clouded him and the loss of his only friend. Ben paused in his trek, hearing the sound of hinges creaking upon a rusting frame. He spun back around to greet the sound. The window was gliding up, two pale hands, discolored with spots of every rainbow spotted here and there like droplets across his knuckles and his palms. A head peered out from above, gazing down on him and Ben managed a smile; him.

          But Jonas did not smile back.

          “Ben!”, he whispered harshly, “What in hell are you doing here?”

          Ben was, to say the least, a little taken back and furrowed his brow, shielding his eyes to the sky and meeting each other in the empty space between them. He cannot reach him, he was like the moon, so beautiful and far beyond the reach of his outstretched arms. All he could do was stare while he keeps looking on, the boy was as precious as gold and hearing his voice wished to bask in the glow of his word.

          Anger quickly took the place of his shock, “What do you mean 'where have I been'? Where the hell have you been?! Nobody has heard from you! I have been worried sick!”, Ben clenched his jaw, fists forming at his hips that he folded and crossed his arms.

          Jonas softened after this burst and Ben saw a wince in his eye before he noticed that he could barely open it. A deep mauve covered his eye, dried blood in the cracks of his teeth and an odd angle of his nose was quite revealing. Ben scratched his brow, covering his mouth and blinking sharply; someone had hurt him worse than he’d ever seen before. His raven hair was greasy, hanging loosely in his eyes in strands that he did not bother tucking behind his ears. Tension swam in the paces between them and, oh how he wished he could climb towards the opening in the window and greet him. Jonas eased himself gently, pressing a hand to the side of his stomach as he did this, lips twitching in agony. Ben witnessed every dismemberment of himself and his actions. The sinister smile that pulled itself across Jonas’s mouth was worn like an apology, stretching across his teeth.

          “I am sorry, Benny.”

          Lower than the other, his shoulders fell; a momentary loss of life and reality transformed him. “My world is a lonely place without you existing beside me,” another grin followed. Part of his mystery was wondering how he could appear calm with so many storms hidden in his eyes. Just as Jonas began to lean farther out of the window, and Ben believed if he went any farther he would fall two floors, he heard a loud slam and heavy footsteps. Jonas pulled himself back through the window and panned his glance over his shoulder nervously, placing his hands back on the window pane.

          “I have to go, Ben,” Jonas started to close to window just as he heard shouts coming closer to the room upstairs.

          Ben opened his mouth, running closer as if he would scarce to do a single thing. “Jonas! Wait--please!”, he begged.

          Jonas recessed himself, distressed, fear building within him and through the tiny space in the sliding window he sighed, whispering out. “See me tonight, where we always...” He cut off his words, ripped himself backwards, fingers rubbing nervously at the gold cross around his neck and he began again to rip the window shut.

_Where we always love._

          “Jonas!”

          The glass rattled in the frame as it slammed down. Once again, Ben was all alone.

 

____________________

 

          Chilled to the bone, sneaking out of his home, Ben trekked in the dark towards the river. He could navigate himself with his eyes closed and it was peaceful throughout. He arrived, seating himself and continuing to blow warm air onto his freezing hands. His breath hung in the atmosphere as he dipped his head back, the crown of his skull resting against the trunk of a tree, his jugular open and bare to the elements.

          He began to wait.

          He waited.

          He waited.

          And, he waited.

          Jonas never came.

          Ben was forced to go home after the fourth hour when he would hardly feel any orphus of his body in the blindly, numbing cold. Ben once told Jonas he would wait days, weeks and years when he could hardly last a night. Maybe their storms were a collection of only thunder. He waited there, among the deep gray and bittersweet moments. Benjamin was lost and in this loss he recognized nothing but his desires; there are were no yesterdays, there are no tomorrows. Ben returned home and laid in his bed still feeling his presence, joining the galaxies and he awaited for when their stars would collide.

          Benjamin Tallmadge waits forever it seems.

 

_______________________

**November 30th, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- IV -----**

 

          It was nearing midnight when the theme of the past months was altered by Nathan’s own actions. He stole the game of Draughts from his father’s shelf as he soundly slept in his chair; he took the candle holder with it still lit as well. His heart pounded against his ribcage as he ventured backup the stairs, away from his father’s study and up the narrow well to his bedroom door. Tucking the board and pieces underneath his arm, he shoved the door open with his foot and it slowly creaked open. Enoch’s eye fell towards him but quickly back down to his book. His brother kept glancing over the top of his read in confusion as Nathan seated himself on the floor, a chill running down his spine. He assembled the pieces, setting them on their places and squares before he began to play by himself; both sides of the same game.

          Nathan remembers the sweat the began to sit on his skull as all of his siblings were packed into the same room like sardines, all peering over the gameboard once. Joseph was gone, since Mama passed it seemed the family saw him less and less. He continued to look down at the checkered board, not up, even as the mattress began to creak and his felt his older brother over his shoulder, his silhouette shadowing across the floor. Nathan put his hand forward to twist the board around so he could play the other side when fingers glided over the back of his hand. He stopped, following the digits until he met Enoch’s coffee like eyes. They had eye contact, a secret communication. Their hands parted and the warmth simmered away, they began to play when Enoch directed a hand to a disk and moved it across the board. They did not speak.

          Richie entered the room soon after, the question lingering on his tongue was soon forgotten as he froze to his spot. His feet treaded closer, sitting upon Enoch’s blankets he began to spectate while taking no involvement. When Nathan lost the game, he gave up his spot so that Richie could play. The ten year old won soon after and Billie, wondering where his brother had wandered off to, entered the room. The same level of hesitation present before seating himself at the board and beginning to combat. Enoch held Davy in his lap when he wandered into the room before it was his turn to join as well. To his astonishment, Eliza came up the stairs, Joanna resting on her hip with her fingers in her mouth--she too joined the game. Nobody spoke a word even though everyone had something to say.

          It was the first time in months Nathan had all of his siblings together, it was the first time in months he experienced true unaltered and uninterrupted joy. He smile came out from his dormant sleep to present itself across his face, mingling with the inner tears of happiness that poured out of him. Eliza only pressed him to her side with an arm around his shoulders, resting a cheek on the top of his head. In this moment it felt alright. It was as if Mama hadn’t passed and none of them knew grief of any sort. They were all grieving in their own ways. Everything had changed, and yet, Nathan felt more as himself than he ever had in his existence. He no longer felt shackled by the impossible dreams of youth and worldly expectations.

          After the happiness, the voices came back. Slowly, inching their way into the air, but they were there: the voices of his siblings echoing back to him. The laughter was last. Enoch rested himself on the other bed and for a second, Nathan flickered his eyes over to him. He had grown in these months, he appeared older. His once copper curls were straightening to a gentle chestnut as the honey that sat in his sockets was darkening. Enoch was taller, fourteen, his shoulders wider, his voice shakier and the column of his throat bobbed. Blinded by his own self absorbance, Nathan knows he missed months where his siblings were all growing without him paying attention. Billie and Richie were looking more and more like each other every day despite their respective ages of ten and eight.

          “Davy wouldn’t you like to go next?”, Eliza asked, gently probing the question in observance of his younger brother’s recent sloth.

          Hearing his name, Davy looked towards her, sitting up and sliding off of the bed. His fingers clasped nervously together as he sat. “David,” he correct. He caught the attention of the rest of the lot who peered upon him. The youngest brother cleared his throat, the soft pitch of his voice ringing out, “I would like you to call me David.”

          The game continued.

          In watching Enoch earnestly, Nathan caught his attention and he’d look away whenever he felt his gaze upon him. At one point when their eyes met, Enoch grinned. Nathan returned it and they felt like brothers again. It was an absorbing feeling as he witnessed things fall steadily back into place after knowing it crack all the same. Papa did notice the game was missing until early morning. Still sleeping, Nathan awoke to the things in his room being ripped apart. Papa found the game and ripped him by the arm from bed. Their father pardoned all of his siblings, just as Nathan wanted. Every single thwack of a buckle upon his open palms and the pain he caged behind his teeth was worth it in every way. Even though his home would never truly be home, his siblings were to him. Nathan Hale managed a smile as he exited his father’s study with marks across his skin. He had a family again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> \- I don't think I have any this week?


	14. Chapter Fourteen | It is Just War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A hunt for Jonas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is gifted to @iafayettes on Tumblr who, in other words, is my intellectual soulmate. Their birthday was a week ago and I wish them a wonderful, wonderful belated birthday <3 I love you.

**December 19th, 1767**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

_“I-I’m sorry, I am not very proficient in conversation.”_

He thinks only of his words.

_“However, people are not comfort either; they are like rivers: ever changing.”_

Stop.

_“Most people you are agreeable towards will kill you in the end.”_

Please, enough.

_“. . . there are things much larger than ourselves that we many never comprehend.”_

He cannot take it any longer.

_“It is out there, walking in this universe, I know it is there.”_

Ben beat a fist to his temple, squeezing his eyes shut and grinding his teeth together. Noticing his son’s irritation, and the set of his jaw, Papa furrowed his brow, glancing over to him.

“Benjamin, are you alright?”, he asked, concern looked flattering upon him and his nose wrinkled.

Ben cleared his throat, swallowing and turning out towards the rolling countryside they passed by in their open carriage. “Nothing, Papa, I am feeling a little ill," he lied.

  There was a hint of hesitation that flashed upon Papa's eyes and in a moment it had disappeared like the snuff of a candle it gone. “Let me know if you need a rest,” Father pulled away from him, but searching and an answer.

Ben nodded in reply but did not say a word.

It was market day and it was Ben’s turn to assist their father in his endeavors. On any normal day, Ben would be overjoyed, as would all of his siblings at the chance to head into the main square. Occasionally, he could catch a word with Abe or Caleb might hand him an apple from his family’s orchard before they both headed off to join Austin. It had been twenty-four days and counting since Jonas slammed the window down upon his calling voice and worried apprehension. He was not in school, neither in church and as much as he tried to get himself not to care, he just couldn’t. Jonas had ventured into every part of his thoughts; light and dark.

The carriage slowed and Ben tugged his cloak closer around his neck to fight the bitter chill of the harbor seas that were cooling his temperature. His father simpered, patting his knee before he hopped down from the carriage, his boots meeting the straw and mud beneath them. Traveling through the market stands lining the lateral of the road, each one open for produce and agriculture, artifacts and tools, Ben was distracted. He declined an apple from Caleb who brushed him off and placed it back among his stock.

Papa faced him, speaking in a raised voice so that his son could hear him across the crowd of people around them. “Benjamin, take this,” an object was held out to him. Distracted, he did not notice it until a few moments later when his name was repeated to him. He took it from his father and placed in into their bag. By this time, the cold was something he had grown accustomed to. In truth, he hunted for Jonas in the crowd, yearned for him in every face he saw and lost all the same.

After half an hour Papa discovered he could do just fine without his son and dismissed him. “Benjamin?”

Ben hummed absentmindedly in reply, peering over his back. 

“Are you listening to me?”

At this Ben met his face that loomed above him. He swallowed, the lump in his throat pulsating there and then he nodded.

Papa crossed his arms, adjusting the corner of his leather hat. The cerulean of his eyes twinkled down, “You can go free for the next hour, I believe I can perform better without you.” He smiled in a good natured manner, however, clearly not meaningly any ill-will. Ben did not return this intimacy. “Go find Jonas, I am sure he is here.”

_Does not he notice his absence?_

Papa winked at him as he went and Ben weakly smiled. _I feel ill._

 

____________________

 

Among the winding dirt streets he did find him. His back was turned but Benjamin could recognize the pattern of his hair from anywhere. There was a hand on Jonas’ shoulder, tugging him along and although Ben wished with every fragment of himself to rush and greet him, he stayed behind following his every move. When what he believed was his father released the grip from his shoulder and Jonas headed in the opposite direction for a tiny moment, Ben made his move. He nearly lost him in the crowd, between the throbbing and pulsating bodies packed together _._ I _cannot lose him again_ , this time it would be forever and Jonas did not make forever too short. Knocking into many, and apologizing to none, he curved himself around every person, trailing Jonas as he fell from the crowd. Ben lunged forward in desperation, reaching for his hand and the ice of his skin met the warmth of his palm.

Jonas spun around, and their eyes met. A thousand knots were cut in his stomach, a million fleeing thoughts of fear cut through him. Their eyes widened and the flesh of his pale lips fell open. Ben could think of a thousand things he wished to say and in twenty-four days of imagination, he was utterly tossed from reality. When Jonas eventually ripped him close without a single phrase and he swore their chests were touching, the world paused for this miracle. Ben felt as the world does after a perfect shower of snow, how the sea knows not the difference between calm and chaos. An air of mystery with passion in their bones with the kindest eyes that God ever wove. Jonas tugged his wrist closer and Ben’s chin hooked over his shoulder. They held each there, in the center of that crowd and the radical beating in their chests. Their arms intertwining around one another, they held one another; this time, neither let go; shutting their eyes and simply living--breathing together.

They soon fell apart as Jonas placed his hands on Ben’s forearms, “Benny, oh dear, how I’ve missed you, dear.”

Ben managed a soft grin, weakening with every study of his friend’s decrepit visage. There were old bruises coloring the skin around his eyes in every shade of misery. A healing cut was stitching slowly together by the day on his lip. His black hair was scraped back into a messy ribbon, fibers of his bangs hanging into his eyes. “And, I, Jonas, am never letting you go.”

They were steadily launched back into reality as Ben reached forward, brushing the gentle, dark hairs off of Jonas’s forehead and his eyes shut slightly as this interaction, leaning into his palm. The pads of his fingers fell next to the bags underneath of his eyes, speckled here and there by customary dots of flecking, flint freckles that characterized his face. Jonas glimpsed, peering around before grasping Ben by the wrist and leading him out of the street. They paused in a private place with mud sinking into the sides of his shoes and cedar splattering his stockings.

“You did not meet me.”

Guilt absorbed into Jonas’s face and he winced as if something invisible had prodded him sharply. “Benny, truly, I apologize with every inch and mile of myself and every step I tread. It was not my intention, I was…” he paused thoughtfully, “...held up.”

Ben reached for him, placing the palm of his hand on his friend’s chest, “Was it your father?”

Jonas blinked several times unexpectedly but did not coax from away from the truth. “Benny, please--”

The younger gulped furiously, the edges of his teeth biting into his lip. “No!”, he shouted and the other faltered somewhat at his tone, “Can not you tell someone? Jonas you cannot stay there any longer, if you have to you can stay with me, but Jonas, please, you cannot go back there.” Ben pleaded, his eyebrows melting and softening feeble, “I cannot suffer any longer in my thoughts of you." His hand slid off of his chest and a pained expression washed over Jonas's visage.

There was a silence before they shushed him, “There is nothing I can do, Ben, please, understand this--”

Ben stamped his foot, “Jonas! Is everyone but you blind to the wounds he had created upon you?”, his voice cracked, “He has made you into only a shell of who you could be.”

“I understand better than anyone,” Jonas smiled sarcastically even if it did not fit the mood of their conversation. His featured dropped, “Speaking of my father,” he grimaced, “he is expecting me to aid him in his endeavors.”

Ben’s shoulders fell, _and if I let you go this time, will I ever see you again?_  he thought. His eyes met the soil beneath them until he felt fingers adjusting his jaw, pulling it towards the one in front of him, their eyes locked again. Ben was glancing up towards him, blinking his eyelashes.

Jonas gasped, a sharp hiss escaping his teeth. “How stunning you are, Ben," he smiled and Ben felt a quiver snake up his spine. “Believe with all your hope that you will see me again.” His fingers slipped off of his chin and for a moment Ben expected him to turn away. An emptiness trembled within him. Instead, they reached behind their own neck, unclasping the gold cross dangling around at his collar bone. His hand leaned across, grasping at Ben’s own and he folded his fingers open. The gold metal fell, contacting with his skin and he shuddered at the foreign touch.

Ben’s first instinct was to push it back towards him, “Jonas, I can’t, it was your mother’s.”

“If you wish to return it you must meet me tonight--”

“--In the place where we always love?” It slipped out past tongue. 

Jonas appeared confused for a moment, but then he nodded and their eyes did stray long. He brought Ben’s knuckles to his face before cradling his fingers into his palm and pressing his lips to his hand. The deep silver of his eyes observed him and Ben’s stomach shifted at the contact of his frigid lips on his skin. His pulse throbbed intensely and he swore he could hear the vibrations from within his wrist. Jonas released before shoving him closer, grasping the sides of his face with both hands. Ben was lying if he said he was not expecting Jonas to lean forward and kiss him. Lips impressed to his forehead and he shut his eyes, leaning into the interaction. The kiss rippled through him at a thousand seconds, comforting all of his flaws and every broken symphony; touched his fears and made him brave. Untamed fire scurried through his veins and, God be damned, it was worth the pain.

Jonas stepped back, his palm sliding down Ben’s elbow, passing over the bed of his wrist and folding past his fingertips. Wonderful ocean waves were pushing against his sand-kissed fingertips when they let go and Ben followed him as he fell back into the crowd and disappeared once again. A part of him wished he had run after him, done something more. For now, and again, he could see his tomorrows in clarity as he wished to relive all of his yesterdays. Jonas had stirred him; every thought, every word. His eyes fell down to his hand and he widened his palm. The little golden cross twinkled up at him like a tiny, shining star. Benjamin pressed his hand to his chest, his neck recessing as he watched the sky. He would carry this piece of Jonas forever, waiting in his pain and yearning while he touched him without fully reaching him ever.

Love was just a war within.

 

___________________________

**December 19th, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- II -----**

 

It is the holidays, and Nathan Hale was all alone. Oh yes, he now had grown to hate the holidays, even if he did not show it. The gentle sprinkle of new fallen snow made him drowsy, the cold nipped at his nose and his blankets were not quite long enough. And of course, it was their first Christmas without her. Their church visits were far more frequent which led to more scoldings when he could not keep his head up during the sermons. Before Papa could catch him tuning out, Enoch would hit his thigh sharply, but quietly, to wake him. He once loved how picturesque everything would grow around this time, but now all it reminds him of is how much he wishes she were here to see it.

For now, Nathan keeps these words to himself and does not share them at all. He keeps her in all the specials places: in his mind, in his heart and woven into the fabric of his soul. He shifts the memory of her scent to the back of his head and tugs his cap farther over his eyes as he heads out of the door in the morning with the snow whistling against his ears. He still longs wishes to hear her voice in his conscious, whispering to him, somewhere out there.

 

___________________________

**December 19th, 1767**

Setauket, New York

**\----- III -----**

 

For a second time, Benjamin Tallmadge stole his way through the shadow of forgotten woods. His legs stretched over land down the valley below his home, where fences are few and life is rather mellow. Walks of land that itched with every sense of living and death. Such warmth and serenity despite the snow sinking into his boots. The river was frozen over this time of the year, a pale sliver of light reflected off of the surface and he saw himself as a slim silhouette across the slickened glass. There was a shape of another, somebody seated up the river with their elbows resting I between their knees, shivering against the cold. This made him slow his pace, treading closer with the crunch of newborn snow under the soles of his feet. They must of seen him approach in the night because Jonas craned his neck towards him and stood up slowly from where he was on the translucent snow bank.

Hardly could they see an expression upon the faces of one another until their eyes adjusted to the darkness and they drew closer to the river side to create more light by the moon hanging in the low sky. Ben did see a smile that peered out through the pearly teeth of Jonas’s mouth. Their arms connected as they greeted one another; Ben hadn’t expected him to be there, to show at all, yet, there is was, standing before him, grinning in beauty that could not be formulated into words.

The pale lips began to move, “You came.”

Ben did not answer for a moment and neither did their eyes break contact. “I wouldn’t miss you for the world.”

Jonas’s eyes glinted so dangerously, so magnificently that he felt he could not breathe. The warmth of his touch and the soothing tone of his heartbeat claimed him. “Listen,” he started, making the space between them shorter, “Benny, I am so sorry-”

Ben put up a hand to silence him, “Don’t be, please, Jonas, you do not have to be.”

He appeared frustrated in return but accepted this. Comfortable but unfinished silence fell over them. “I care for you, Ben,” he swallowed, “I truly, truly care for you.”

“And I for you.”

Jonas ran a hand over the back of his neck and the rose that settled on his cheeks made him glow under the night sky. There was a deeper meaning in his eyes; it was not just a trick of the light. He saw battles once fought across his eyelids and disdain reflection of scratches upon the flesh of his heart. Embarrassed, Jonas looked away, off into the abyss of fog across the river bend. Ben reached forward, settling a hand on his jaw and tugging his eyes back towards him. The pieces slipped together, and it was all assembled, but Jonas open his mouth again.

“Ben-”

Ben shut him up, crashing forward with a push and a hand pushing over Jonas’s shoulder towards his back. Jonas felt like the scent of the present and when their lips met, carving into each other, it tasted just as how icy winds and warm autumn nights do. The tension in his shoulders dissipated before their lips, like waves, formed around one another as both moved to cover verses in time with each syllable. This declaration was without a sound ever being uttered. It felt as if every part of him that came from a dead star was suddenly alight. And, when they eventually fell apart, Ben felt little piece of Jonas’s soul scatter across his fingertips like a thousand beams of light. He wanted to lie with him, chest to chest, arms curled around every particle, pressing into one another. A dusk of eyelashes fluttered over freckled skin like long ebony sashes of adoring velvet. Ben sensed Jonas was watering seeds on his skin with his touch, someday flowers would grow there.

When they both walked home that evening, on separate paths, each with a smile on their face, they couldn’t help but know the other was under the same sky, beneath the same stars and within the exact universe. Ben gave Jonas back his cross and he reached for it eagerly as it were bread and he had been starving for months. It was perhaps all he had left to remind him of hope. Every formation of time made it possible for them to meet; each was grateful.

 

___________________________

**December 26th, 1767**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- IV -----**

 

Nathan requested only thing of his father at Christmas, even though it was technically Enoch who proposed it. Dr. Huntington was torturous, dull and in all, uninteresting. His older brother attempted to get him to talk to his father, of which he had not said a word to eight long months. If Nathan asked Papa, he knew what answer he would get and in all honesty, he was not ready to speak to him yet (maybe ever). When he pushed himself off the backboard of his bed and watched his bedroom door as it opened and Enoch stepped through, he knew when his brother nodded towards him that he’d completed their goal.

“No more Huntington,” Enoch grinned, rubbing his hands together contently.

Nathan wrinkled his nose, “Who shall it be now?”

The elder grasped his shirt by the bottom fringes before pulling it over his head and opening a dresser drawer. “You remember Nathan Strong?”, he asked, tugging his nightshirt from the wooden casing.

Nathan nodded his head, lying on his stomach across the bed, exhausted. “Mama’s cousin?”

Enoch confirmed this for him and Nathan flopped his head down onto the blankets. The next thing his brother said caught him off guard.

“You will have to speak to him eventually.”

Nathan propped his head up slowly, blowing stray hairs out of his eyes. “If Papa wished to say anything to me at all, he would of done so by now.”

Enoch sighed, messing with the collar of his white shirt and tucking his wool stockings off his legs.“I know, Nathan, believe me, I understand.” He paused himself, “He’s our father, you must care.”

Nathan shrugged his shoulders slowly, “If he does not, why should I?”

In the secret coves within himself, Nathan did care for his father. A miniscule ounce of himself truly minded. He wanted them to talk again, as father and son, the way it used to be before Mama passed. At dinner his mouth parts when he thinks of something to say, before the words can come out his cheek begins to sting as if from the crack of a whip and he shuts his mouth; consigning his words to oblivion. He tucks his head into his chest and does not say a phrase to provoke conversation. In losing his mother, he'd lost his father. When depression prodes him, all Nathan does is remind himself of every time his father seemed disgusted to even look at him. _What is the use in mending something when you cannot find the pieces?_


	15. Chapter Fifteen | Thinly Veiled

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark thoughts for the both of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is for @ink-lantern on Tumblr! I absolutely adore them and I hope you enjoy, Alex! :D

**January 11th, 1768**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- I -----**

 

          Nathan Hale was a few moments old the first time he nearly perished. In the arms of his mother, her lingering scent as she held her infant in her arms, nursing him to health. He was racked with a terrifying cough when he was two and in result, Mama would not allow him outside for many years in fear for his safety. He had practically begged for his own liberation and she had given it to him generously in return for taking it away from his eldest sister, Eliza. He was seven when he fell from a large chestnut tree in the woods behind his home. He’d merely dislocated his wrist that time but he remembers the pain as he wandered himself lost and sobbing towards his home where. He feared amputation most of all. He can recall himself crying out louder as Samuel had teased him in his fears.

          That day at the old schoolhouse where everything was in serenity and it all appeared well in the company of his friends was striking. He’ll remember the words forever that passed his friend's lips. Citing the mole on his neck, they told him he was to be hanged. He’d gotten sick many times prior, until he grew more robust and no longer illness prevailed him over. In some sickening way, it was that mole that was keeping him from death’s door. It was a destiny or his calling, he was not to die in obscurity; he knows every time he scrapes a hand over the side of his neck.

          It was the summer of his twelfth birthday, in that past year, when he tested the boundaries of life once again; it would not be his last time, he understood.

          Early July, a visit from the recently moved Joseph prompted Nathan, Richie, Billie, Enoch and Asher to go to Great Pond. It was a lake they’d known and visited many times. The largest body of water he knew, it was the only a few stretches of land north from their home and it was not uncommon for other children in neighbouring farms to be there as well. It was a sweltering afternoon, sweat clinging to their skin thickly like sap, his hair stuck to his forehead in the moisture. Nathan was the first one to enter the water that day, his brothers lingering on shore to watch him let out a shrill shriek at the temperature. After stripping himself eagerly of all his clothing he trotted down the beach, calling his brothers cowards for not joining him in the groves of juniper that was crawling up out of the water onto the shore. He rolled his eyes before stepping in and peering at all of his brothers who were observing him intently.

          Nathan smirked, “You’ve got to be joking.” None of his brothers moved to respond. “You’d rather melt in the sun than join me?” Ignoring them, he turned around towards the water, dragging himself forcingly into the rocks and shivering a great deal at the cold despite the warmth of the day. It took nearly an hour before his brothers joined him in it. He witnessed Asher grin for the first time in months and heard Richie groan whenever Billie kept holding his head under the water. Nathan felt brave, he felt courage and he sensed something of happiness. It was a mistake, however, a mistake that nearly cost him.

          Abandoning his brothers in the shallow water, he swam further out past where he couldn't touch the stone under his bare feet. The sun hung high in the sky, illuminating the surface of the water into a million different reflections of exquisite light. He felt dangerous and full of lovely things. His spine quivered with an emblem of reckless endearment. Burning in this defiance he revolved himself, rubbing the water from his fluttering eyes and hurling his attention towards the bank where his brothers were gathered. Joseph met his eyes at that distance and they stared for a while with peculation. Nathan stole one last glance of the trees dotting the curve before plunging himself fully beneath the water.

          The frigid shock of being completely submerged greeted him informally as he struggled to keep his eyes closed. The world was muted and he could forget: the past, that he'd ever been hit him, that his family was fragmented, and voices of scars running too deeply in him. He guided himself towards the bottom of the lake in the emerald, sparkling water, feeling with outstretched fingers at the slippery pebbles that shifted across his fingertips. Even if he opened his eyes, he would be unable to see anything in the murky water. He sensed the warmth of the piercing sunlight through the water as his long hair drifted restlessly and calmly about him. Nathan’s lungs began to burn but still he did not return to the surface. Even as his head was attempting to get him to steal a breath, he held in the little air he had left within him. Every part of himself began to quiver, every tendril coiled in upon itself but he did not return to the surface. Not until his head started to spin did he reluctantly push off from the bottom to breath air once again. It was exactly how he’d felt these past months without everything perfectly put together: breathless. Just as the sky was in reach of his outstretched fingertips and he parted his mouth to inhale did he felt something drag him back down to the bottom.

          Nathan and his brother had heard stories before. A child in the town would go missing and they’d be found floating in the ravine shortly after with weeds roped around their ankles. He struggled, tried freeing himself from their grasp but it kept a firm hold. It was unlike any last moment he'd believed he would have. Everything wasn't clarity but instead in blurry reticence. He did not find time to think of his family or anyone else as he felt bubbles slip out of his mouth. His lungs, craving for breath with every second passing. Floating underneath the surface, he simply stopped moving; he discontinued his struggle. He shut his eyes, casting his eyes away from the surface. It was only then that he began to think as he lost hope.

          _It felt difficult to walk through life on a path of broken dreams._

          Eyes were closed as if did not wish to see his shattered hope. For this time he could accept was just a young boy who did not know how to fix a thing or let alone try. Everything he knew was amiss, shifting like fire in his abdomen and scurrying eagerly to his throat. He forgot about his idealed fate. Barely conscious, water beginning to enter his nose, he welcomed a pair of arms diving around his chest, ripping him up from the groves that entangled him. Lids still clamped when the water broke above his head, he hesitated a few seconds before respiring. A cloud of vertigo trembled him to the core and he became petrified. His blonde hair was in his eyes as he was shambled onto the shore. Only later did he thank Asher and Joseph for saving his life; then, he also took his punishment.

          Enoch clambered up the shore, “Nathan!”, he shouted, dropping down onto his knees next to him and grasping at his jaw firmly while snapping it towards him. Nathan blinked absently, water leaking from a corner of his mouth as he coughed weakly and rolled his tired eyes many times over to wake himself.

          Joseph spoke next. “What the hell were you thinking?”, he snapped, gently parting the hair off of his forehead and biting down on his lower lip. Nathan had not a reply and he saw his three youngest brothers huddled together next to him, all in anxiety. He was too weak to console them though he wished with everything he could calm their frightened expressions.

          “You realize you could've been killed?”, Asher mentioned, his brows furrowed and his shaking hands were inserted into his pockets to conceal them.

          A tiny laugh escaped Nathan’s throat, and it was all strength could manage.

          Joseph grew angrier, crossing his arms roughly and grinding his teeth together. “This is funny to you?”, he groaned and stiffened his glare.

          Nathan’s lips rustled to speak tirelessly. “How can I die so soon when I am to be hung?”

 

______________________ 

**February 13th, 1768**

Setauket, New York

**\----- II -----**

 

          “I fear my father will attempt to suit me.”

          Benjamin was not expecting this dialogue in the slightest. He moved his head up, shaping a gander rapidly towards Jonas who had seated himself next to him on the river bank. John, unaware of their serious dialect, kept leaning closer to the rushing river water, taking sticks and attempting to take a stab at a bottom that they could not see. Keeping a cautious glimpse on his ten year old brother, he side-eyed Jonas. He grasped at a dying twig, drawing little shapes in the snow with it.

          “What makes you think that?”, Ben inquired, flicking the twig away from them with two lazy fingers. John got onto his knees in the snow, his face nearing the water’s edge. Ben scolded him quickly and his younger brother whined before wiping off his hands and stepping away reluctantly.

          "In the oncoming years as I am older." Jonas rested his elbows on his knees and endeavored to make eye contact. He shrugged his shoulders, “Speaks often of Setauket women,” he swallowed, sighing a little, “He believes women of New York cherish gossip far much, however.” He admitted a tiny laugh, hanging his head down and letting the dark hair drift in front of his eyes; they were nearly fifteen.

          Ben smiled, resting again on his back with his neck turned towards him. “I wouldn’t wish for that myself," he admitted, "Marriage doesn't phase me."

          Jonas grinned again before reclining beside Ben and their hips connected. “Do not you worry, Benny, I shan’t be marrying another.”

          John brushed the ice off of his bare hands before striding over from the river’s edge. His eyebrows arched in bewilderment, “Who’s that, Ben?”

          Perplexed, Ben pointed a brief squint to Jonas before sitting up and peering down towards a more rapid bend of the winter stream. In the summer, the water could be scarcely a trickle and in the winter, an entire sea of swirling pale teal and mint. Twitching his numb nose, he gapped through the trees before catching a group of others stumbling through the woods towards them. It was in an area where the water was thinly veiled by a coating of ice and it dipped over moss coated rocks.

          Recognizing them, Ben grumbled be musingly to himself.

          Jonas approached him, “Who is it?”

          They didn’t lock eyes as Ben passed his younger brother and charged towards them. “My brother.”

 

_________________________

 

          Ever since Samuel Tallmadge was nine years old he’d been involving himself with those far older than himself. Where was he constantly? Caleb Brewster and Austin Roe had been friends practically since they could walk and everyone knew it. Occasionally, Abraham Woodhull could be seen with them although he preferred the companies of either Ben or his own privacy. Caleb was a tall, muscular, recent twenty year old who Ben used to speak to occasionally in his father’s schoolhouse. When he visited town, Caleb always passed him a wink or give him an apple. Austin was robust eighteen year old with a raw framed chest always puffed out and an imposing stand with placed himself in an aura command. Between the two they were nearly identical. Each held their alcohol the same and Ben could never mistake the unfavorable comments his father muttered underneath his breath at their conduct together.

          In truth, Ben had nothing against them. They had never done a thing to him, they’d never injured his integrity. Occasionally (besides the fruit) Austin would ruffle at his hair and jab a finger into his side to provoke him unfavorably. To be recognized was all he cared for. Perhaps it was their constant hijacking of his brother to which he barely saw him anymore. What was he to say? It was his brother’s decision. Of himself and his brothers, Samuel was the least as their mother and father. He had a rare shade of medallion eyes from their grandmother and a bespeckled light walnut shade of hair that appeared in a honey tincture occasionally.

          Jonas chased after him as Ben neared them and John trailed somewhere behind. Samuel glimpsed at them in an off minded manner before returning his attention to Austin and Caleb who were pushing down on a fallen tree trunk with their boots. It had created a narrow bridge across the river to see if it could possibly carry their weight across the swirling, pearling waters below.

          The drift crunched underneath him as he came forth, “Samuel, what are you doing?”, he canvassed.

          Samuel merely shrugged his shoulders and stuck out his lower lip. Austin gasped, shaking the snow from his hair and tugging the collar of his tawny jacket farther to conceal his bare and paling neck. “Damn, it is freezing,” he grunted as he kicked down at the fallen tree trunk lying parallel across the river. It trembled slightly and he seemed hesitant to go farther. He placed a foot on top, stepping down and planting back into the earth.

          Jonas piped up from next to him, “Do you believe that’s safe, Brewster?”

          Caleb smirked, raising a brow and sticking a fat fist on his hip. “Murphy, have you ever known me to do a unsafe thing?”, he mocked and made a face.

          Jonas recoiled at hearing his last name and crossed his arms over his chest.

          “Are you really thinking of crossing that?”, Ben motioned at the thin trunk, examining it for himself.

          Samuel nodded sarcastically but did not speak. John stepped next to him and Ben ripped him closer, placing an arm around his shoulder to keep him in place.

          Brewster laughed and blinked at them, “What are you, Tallmadge? His mother?”

          Anger broiled up within his wrists but he felt Jonas slide a hand down his arm and squeeze at his wrist. He calmed and his eyes floated down to the river. It was serene today, a thin layer of ice shrouding the surface underneath in the melting winter scene. A gentle wind rustled through, re-adjusting the atmosphere and the clouds reflected off the surface of the slick, glistening sleet. It glowed a magnificent rose with the closing season. A shift of anxiety shifted in his abdomen as he followed when his brother approached the trunk.

          “Samuel, please, don’t do it,” he commanded, and Samuel shot him a stern look in reply.

          “Benjamin, stop it,” his brother retorted.

          Jonas stepped forward, “Honestly, Samuel, it doesn’t appear to be strong enough.”

          Samuel scoffed as Austin let out a tiny giggle. “They’ve come to save you, Sammy.” In turn to his mockery, Samuel did not reply and groaned at the embarrassment while his cheeks turned rouge more anything the cold air had done.

          Caleb moved aside as Samuel placed his first foot confidently on the icy wood. “Ladies first.”

          His younger brother ignored this and lifted himself off, applying a second foot and putting his arms stiffly out to balance himself. Anxiously, Ben felt his breath as his brother crossed. If he were to fall into the water… Ben couldn’t think of it himself. It seemed everyone was guarding their eyes as he balanced himself impulsively. Caleb and Austin flicked at each other a hesitant looks and he saw the elder chew on his inner cheek nervously. Ben let out his breath when it all appeared to be going well.

          It was sooner than he should of let his guard down.

          His lungs deflating and the trembling of his palms discontinuing, Ben felt Jonas’s stiff fingers press off the bed of his wrist and climb back to his thigh. Samuel was at the center of the rotting trunk, lifting a foot and placing it back down. There was an ear-piercing cracking sound of splitting wood. Quickly Samuel spun around, attempting to gather himself off of the wood before it broke beneath him. He made a wrong step in his speed, the sole of his boot skidded on an obscure sheet of ice. Immediately, he lost his footing. His eyes went wide with fear and shock as he tumbled back off the smashing tree. 

 _"Ben!"_ He crashed into the river with speed, obliterating the ice underneath his weight as he disappeared beneath the water. His sharp screams were masked by the waterfall.

          Immediately Ben sprinted forward towards the bank. He shot over the water, only a ripple across the sheath remained of what he had seen before. Not another person made a move as he searched the water in a panicked motion. The water was beginning to calm when he began to rip the boots off his feet, tossing the laces aside and tearing off his jacket in such rapid procession he could scarcely believe it was occurring. In the midst of catastrophes he felt not timid nor shy, he only heard his heart hammering in his ears, in his chest, and the clouded vision of which he could not see through the obscurity. Jonas attempted to restrain him from jumping into the frozen water and Caleb began to tear off his clothing shakily in procession. _Nobody else made a move to save his brother_. Animosity controlled him over and he shoved Jonas off of him. They fell to the snow on their back from an elbow to the nose.

          Without thinking, he rushed into the water. He remembers nothing; not even the stinging bitter cold which consumed him. Ben reached out his arms, hollered out his brother’s name with each increasing syllables becoming burnt screams on his tongue. His fingers skipped through the surface of the water and it was maybe less than ten seconds his brother had been underneath the water before he saw a hand break through the surface and he grasped for it desperately. Their souls were a quiet, frigid hum underneath their layers of skin as their frozen, slippery hands met. He ripped his brother up from the water and his eyes opened shockingly. Up to his chest in the water now and hardly able to pierce the bottom with his foot he gathered his brother’s body in his arms; he felt them softly but violently shuddering.

          Samuel, in shock, began again to cry out as Caleb grabbed for him from the shore with his ankles in the ice. Ben tried lifting him towards them but his brother clinged onto his chest like a baby, shivering and blabbering out. His neck in the water, without knowing in his frenzy, Samuel kept pushing Ben’s head under the surface. The ledge underneath the water slid and Ben gasped as he felt himself plunging deeper into the river, shock of the harsh water filling up his lungs; the shore was just in the reach of his fingertips. His eyes were still parted when rocks shifted at a dip and Ben fell under. He heard his name being yelled above the water, the chill of his ears made it difficult to hear. Ben made a last attempt to kick his legs up but they would not move to respond--he was paralysed from the temperature.

          A thousand tiny needles struck his skin, his vision darkened into a tunnel. His hands were illuminated above by the surface, air just inches from his grasp--life, a few moments away from him. They’ll find him later, ice plastered to his skin, soil staining his hands and an invisible ache in the pit of his heart where it was dark, silver and drowned. Every ripple of the water seized him as eager arms compassed desperately for him as he sunk lower; they were like a slicing storm with so many wonderful sounds. His heart, still hammering in his ears, was as a drum. Ben unbridled himself as disquietly as possible and he could no longer inch a muscle. The pain was far greater than anything he had ever felt in his entire life, every cell was being replaced by ice in his blood and his bones.

          Ben simply shut his eyes. As easily as the cold water opened it’s wanting hand, it simply let him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> -


	16. Chapter Sixteen | Target Practice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben copes with illness and Nathan speaks to his father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a week late because I didn't have time to edit it last week. I am sorry, I am so busy and a mess right now. This chapter is gifted to the kindest person on earth, Nora (@umbrellabirds on Tumblr). Wish them a happy birthday soon. I love you, Nora, with all mon coeur.

**February 13th, 1768**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          He left so that he could arrive once more. He could not recall any visions, spotty and blurred or his past laughs sweetly on his lips. There is darkness only where his mind attempts to remember and a struggle later to piece it all together. Ben wasn't able to see who eventually pulled him from the water, he didn’t taste the bitter wash of water exiting his lungs, he didn’t feel a shiver of cold although he was violently shuddering, he didn’t hear the lap of the water against the shell of his ear. As his eyes kept blinking from light to shadow, he was only able to make out the sky, the branches above and Jonas’s face as it loomed before him. A frozen hand was gripping his jaw as he fluttered in and out of consciousness. Jonas’s voice was above him, shouting out orders to the others as they stood idle in shock.

          “Bring me his coat!”

          Ben’s head rocked from side to side as he moaned and his wet shirt was torn from his pale skin. His eyelids shut again to Jonas’s holler in his ear as he ripped his face upwards.

          “Stay awake!”, Jonas demanded.

_It’s getting warmer._

          “Ben, please, you have to stay awake.” Jonas hollered out another demand as John began sprinting away from them into the woods.

_It’s getting darker._

          “Open your eyes!”

_The leaves are falling; so am I._

          “ _Ben!_ ”

          _I'm sorry._

          He lost a battle with unconsciousness which overtook him.

 

__________________________

 

          For a week he drifted from sleep to wake.

          Papa arrived fifteen minutes after John had gone to collect him. As his father quickly picked him up, yelling to the older boys, Ben awoke again. His head was dipped back and he moaned in discomfort. Upside-down he caught Jonas standing stunned to the spot where Papa had left him.

          “Jonas…”

          Father quieted him, pulling him closer to his breast. He heard Samuel crying and John attempted to shut him up through the obvious annoyance lacing his voice. He lapsed again back into rest.

 

___________________________

 

          Ben was laid in his upstairs room upon his bed and ripped from all of his clothing. His head thrown back and Papa restrained his arms to keep him from curling until a ball. He felt deep, shallow, sensitive and vulnerable, being shed of his layers for all to see. A doctor came into the room soon after and the room was beginning to swelter. He awoke in the evening, past dusk, crying out at the heat. The scolding warmth was swallowing him, sealing him within his skeletal frame. Every particle of himself was attempting to scratch itself into escape with needles and claws. Benjamin trembled, the expanse of his skin curled against each other. The window was open and he was frigid, he cannot handle the gentle breeze. He is tremoring so very violently. The window is closed. He is breaking under idle fire air. In every battle he lost.

 

_______________________

 

          Rarely, in that week, had he a few minutes or seconds of lucidity but when his mind was not paralyzed, he could witness his mother vaguely spooning tiny sips of soup or pressing some type of sour drink to his lips that tasted revolting. His father often was in prayer whenever he saw him, lips moving casually to the words of the bible. John, when he was present, often lay his own bed observing him twist and wrangle in some foreign dream. The cough wracked him, shuddering and stammering his ribs into collision at odd angles. He did not wake for many days and even if it was only a week it seemed to be a prolonged eternity to him.

 

______________________

**February 20th, 1768**

Setauket, New York

**\----- II -----**

 

          It was exactly seven days before he was able to remain fully conscious for longer than a few miniscule minutes. More than often, he witnessed his mother beside him and when he awoke completely for that first time he witnessed her. She was bent as a peddler with soft, firm eyes and a shine on her exhausted face. There were not enough hours in the night to rid her of such yearning. Ben’s eyelids blinked wearily open, blurring before focusing on his lateral and his mother’s fraying hair. She sat upright when they locked eyes and they widened. His body felt stiff and every joint pulsated with a dull, senseless pain. He shifted his head to the side.

          “Mama?”, he called out to her gently, his vocal chords groggy and rising from an extended hibernation.

          She pressed a warm finger to his lips and a small sound admitted from between her teeth as she scooped the hair off of his forehead. “Don’t speak, Benjamin.”

          And he didn’t.

          Mama pressed a cold cloth to his forehead and sighed a little, her body deflating and the burden of a million worries left her. A brilliant sort of glee twinkled on her cheekbones. A bleak breeze stalked in through the window and rustled up her hair, resettling every strand. She rubbed the surface of his hand with her fingers and squeezed, smiling. He believed he never saw her appear so beautiful and domineering all at the same time. John came upstairs sometime after, jumping upon him and wrapping his arms around his neck tightly. His body shook softly and Ben held him close.

          “I worried you’d never awake, Ben.” His voice was filled with eager delight and he didn’t let go for a long while. Ben shut his eyes, placing a palm on the back of their head and pushing him gently into the crook of his neck.

          “How could I ever leave my favorite brother?”

          John recessed, grinning wider than he’d ever seen before. They played chess into the late afternoon and Ben allowed him to win every time just to keep the smile upon their face.

 

________________________

 

          William, Samuel and Papa arrived from the school house in the late afternoon. William simpered lightly and patted his shoulder before placing his hands in his pockets and heading out of the room. Ben watched him exit and thought of how every day he appeared more and more like their father as the blonde was stealing away to an ashy brown. Papa simply kissed his forehead when he leaned up and made the symbol of a cross across his front. He attempted to create light conversation but Ben was too weakened and retorted in short, define answers. However, just as his father was leaving, Ben caught his arm and they spun around to meet him.

          “How is Jonas?”, he questioned.

          Papa’s eyes crinkled, “I am indebted to him.”

          An inquiring expression furrowed his brows, “For what, may I ask?”

          Papa’s face became more serious and his nose down turned, “Among the statues, he was able to move. Brewster may of pulled you from the water but Jonas ultimately saved you.” He grimaced as Ben shot up to explain but shot back down into the pillow as his spine cracked. “Samuel explained it all a thousand times over, there is no need to reference it once again.”

          Ben clamped his mouth, peering behind Papa at Samuel who was slinking sheepishly in the far corner of the room and appearing as if he was going to run out at any moment. Before leaving, Papa sniped Samuel a sharp glance and he gulped in reply. The color drained from his brother’s face and they felt every vibration of their father’s shoes through the hardwood floors as he had closed the door behind him. There was silence for a long moment and the air was still but swirling with unspoken words. Samuel flickered his gaze over to the one laying before walking weakly towards the bed frame. His knees were shaking and when he was halfway there he sprinted, jumping onto the mattress and throwing arms around Ben’s thin frame when they collided.

          Ben allowed him a second to wrestle a bit of overdue grief and in his guilt squeezed him tighter and tighter with every exasperating sob that left his mouth. Ripples, and tidals of these that arrived over and over again. All Ben could do for him for was to hold him until he was able to choke out an apology. Ben simply nodded in reply and wiped the tears leaking from their eyelids. In all the decades he will know his brother, Samuel never recovered from that. He did not get over that type of guilt and many years later, still in their meetings, he whispers an apology for what he’d done and thanks him for saving his life. Ben waves him away and smiles back gently. They saw less and less of Caleb Brewster and Austin Roe through the years.

          It was as if a light had struck Samuel between his eyes and hardened him, made him wiser. Everyone appreciated this change, it was beneficial.

 

______________________

**February 24th, 1768**

Setauket, New York

**\----- III -----**

 

          A few evenings later, there was a rapping at their bedroom window. John was sleeping quietly in his bed and it was eleven-thirty at night. Down the hall his parents were asleep and in the room over, William and Samuel were as well. Ben rubbed his exhausted eyes as the words were beginning to blur together on the page of the book he was reading. He set it face down and cautiously slipped from bed, lifting up his nightshirt as his feet padded soundlessly on the floorboards. A crescent moon twinkled in the night sky, glistening across the many miles of snow.

          Startling him, a face appeared behind the glass and he clutching his heart sparingly. Making sure not to make a sound, he unhooked the latch and postulated in the center of the frame. Before he could say anything, a pair of arms latched around him, pulling him close. On the thick tree branch outside of his window, Jonas balanced himself on the edge of his toes to reach. They soon tugged apart but his friend kept a grip on his shoulders as if to keep him sternly from running off.

          Jonas grinned, the candle light shining across his teeth, “I heard you had awoken and I would of shown sooner if I could.” Their eyes were locked together and Ben simpered in return. The frozen night air entered the room and he shivered in his thin shirt. Jonas arched his brows at the quivers he sensed.

          Ben chattered his teeth, “Would you like to come in?”, he needled.

          Jonas smirked, every freckle on his face twinkling like a stellar array of the night sky. “I would be delighted.”

 

__________________________________

 

          As quietly as they could muster, they settled onto the sheets and Ben rested his tired head upon the pillow. Jonas lay parallel beside him, his murky eyelashes blinking out at him with an aura of mystery. There were still speckles of snowflakes scattered across his hair and coat which soon melted in with exposure to the warm room. Neither of them made a noise, nor could they exchange a tiny morsel of it. Jonas inclined, shoving his fingers through Ben’s hair softly before capturing his lips in his. It tasted like chilled wine and the earth, he felt his laughter through his skin against his own. It lifted his soul and eased his burdens while sharing joy and sorrow all the same. For this moment he craved conversation until the moonlight was exchanged for that of the sun when it shone across their skin.

          The large clock downstairs chimed twelve times and Jonas pulled them apart. His cheeks were a jaded pastel and his eyes reflected the darkness of a thousand storms. As soft as light touches the horizon, Jonas leaned down, his warm breath on the shell of Ben’s ear.

          “Happy birthday, Benjamin Tallmadge.”

          Jonas clambered back out the window sometime later. Before Ben shut the window just as John began to stir at the commotion, Jonas cupped his jaw with a hand and they met once again. The sensations of their reaction fought off any passion of cold of which combat on his bare arms. The window closed, he dragged the covers over himself and fell asleep with a smile illuminating his cheeks.

 

______________________

 

**March 5th, 1768**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- IV -----**

 

          Papa spoke to him for the first time in nearly a year; Nathan really wished he hadn’t. Spring was breaking across their land and a balmy chill cloaked the air, striping the winter frost. It was a still Saturday, a formidable knock broke the stillness of their bedroom and the intruder entered anyways. Nathan passed Enoch a glance and he blinked wearily. Their father entered the room, clearing his throat and not even passing a single glance in Nathan’s direction--which he expected. Enoch sat up straighter on the mattress. Papa leaned on the doorframe, an authoritarian demeanor embodied him. Nathan ignored him, crossing his legs again and turning back to his notebook.

          “Enoch, it is high time you learned to shoot a musket properly,” Papa said gruffly, following his son intently. Enoch did not move, he did not nod and neither did he agree. Both brothers remembered a few times their uncle would come over and have them shoot in the yard. Enoch was a terrible shot, Nathan was fairly decent, or so he thought of himself. For the past few weeks an angry growl would resound from Papa as a worker detailed and revealed the tiny nibbles on their crops. Nathan peeked through the bars at the top of the stairs as Papa clasped his forehead, throwing the greens down angrily to which Eliza would quickly clean before it grew past this angry outburst.

          At dinner a few nights prior Papa chagrined, biting at his food vehemently and staring past, out the window. “I ought to get my gun and shoot them myself,” he pursed his lips and purred.

          “What is getting at them, Papa?”, David asked.

          Papa shook his head. “Deer, just some deer”, he narrowed his eyes farther into the room and narrowed back down to his food.

          As usual, Nathan did not so much as breathe a word or elert in anyway his presence as to not attract him attention. He always thought them pleasant creatures. Occasionally he witnessed them feeding on the path as he treaded to school. He enjoyed to stop and watch them before they noticed his presence and scampered off into the trees.

          “If they come again, I’ll get them,” Richard Hale mentioned this in a low voice and nobody spoke more about it after.

          On his bed, Enoch swallowed, stammering before nodding his head hesitantly. To his own surprise, Papa was attentative towards him. “Nathan, you as well.” Surprised, the boy flickered his eyes over to him and widened them--he too nodded in reply. Papa left the room after telling them to gather their warmest jacket despite the spring haze as well as a canteen. Father was wearing muddy boots when the brothers came to the first floor. A wool hat covered his head and it was different to see him dressed so primitive. Papa rushed them out of the house and into the afternoon sun, slinking behind them and shutting the door. Eliza gave them morsels of bread and filled their material canteens for them. She kissed Nathan’s forehead gently before he went and she gave the same fragrance that his mother once did.

 

___________________________

 

          They burrowed in the bushes after the workers had completed their work for the day. The musket was kept perched open on a tree branch, the silver glinting in the glow and shining faintly. Papa neither had to teach them to load it, for they already knew. It grew colder and Nathan regretted not bringing his warmest jacket as Enoch urged him too. He quickly grew bored too, and began to count every bird he saw swoop across the sky, dashing through the picturesque scene magnificently. Afternoon drew into evening as the sun crawled painfully slowly from the sky and seeked refuge behind the blooming mountains. In truth, he was not exactly _bored_ , but there were a million things he’d rather be doing. Evening drawled into night and there was only a sliver of light beyond their shadows of air. Each brother was lying on either side of their father who was staring statue-like across the valley.

          In an attempt to entertain Enoch, Nathan made a face and his brother nearly laughed before Papa rapidly clamped a hand over his mouth and their emotions dropped. His breath hanging in the atmosphere of the unmoving night, every sound of the deep forest behind them knocking together and a rich wind brushing his cheeks. Papa whispered to his sons in a voice lighter than a pinch of salt.

          “Quiet boys, you’ll frighten it off,” he pointed off and they trailed a line of sight extending off Papa’s pointer finger.

          In the fields, a doe with a slick coat of light brown and twitching white ears had bent its shiny black nose into a batch of lettuce growing out in their fields. Silently, like water, the dried leaves brushed underneath Papa’s stomach as he reached forward and snapped back the carved trigger at the top of the barrel. The barely audible click echoed across the field and even the crickets discontinued to croak over the tall, dew-dropped grass. Without facing either of them, Papa spoke again, this time to Enoch.

          “You’re the oldest, take the shot,” the gun was shifted over to Enoch who blinked several times at it. In the moonlight, unable to see a single thing except for the starlit field, Nathan did see the horror that penetrated the widened whites of Enoch’s auburn eyes. He attempted to make out a reply and breath caught in his throat as he backed away. Enoch had never been fond of the sport or shooting in any way; it seemed to frighten him.

          _“Bullets shoot through only good things,”_ his brother once told him, _“and I imagine it has entered myself, pulverized a lung or leave bits of bone scattered within my veins. It will be agonizing and I will know how anything I’ve ever shot felt, in that moment, when their life was slipping from within them. I cannot imagine such a death and neither should any living have to.”_

          The width of his eyes as he stared at the glistening barrel of the gun encompassed an entire night sky. A tiny mutter admitted from him, only a stutter growing to a roar as it bounced back from the hills at the end of the field. Nathan threw a glance out and the deer froze, perking its head up. The animal couldn’t of been more than a year old, and their two ebony eyes were paralyzed, glimpsing into the murk where the flash had arose. They were like two stirling coals, twinkling and shining above a shut jaw. They appeared like the seeds of sunflowers of which had not yet bloomed. The deer finally blinked and poked its nose back into the soil cautiously.

          Growing impatient, Papa shoved the musket towards Enoch and he jerked away as if afraid to touch it. “Take… it…”, he breathed, grunting stiffly through clenched teeth at his indignance.

          “I’ll do it,” Nathan announced before his brain had time to register what he’d proclaimed. Papa flicked towards him, snapping another glance towards Enoch who watched him in confusion, and, perhaps a bit of relief. The gun was given to him and Papa whispered tips to him (things he already knew).

          “Hold your hand there… that’s it.”

          Those startling gems stuck to the corners of his brain and of which he would not forget, just as he was in reverie over the scent of his mother. The gun felt heavy stuffed against his shoulder, and although he was tall and large framed, the end of it felt longer than his entire shoulder. As he shifted it, light continued to catch on the shining barrel, illuminating through the night. His heart raced in his chest and his sweaty hands clung to it, a finger hovered above the trigger. All he had to do was pull. It was at that moment the grazing deer shifted its head up once again and his squinted eye for aim fell open. The tense squeeze on his muscles ceased and he relaxed. As sign of confidence he had before had completely disappeared and his finger skipped off of the trigger.

          Papa was confused and his mouth fell open, “What are you doing?”, he hissed into his ear and Nathan winced at the sharp sound. He did not return anything but poked his head up fully to where the animal was staring at him from the clearing, eyes calm and without any emotion; it’s that last night of life shining across its feature that stuck with him. _Born to die_. His stomach buzzed, he felt he was to be sick, his hands shook as he shoveled them back into the earth.

          Rage embodied their father and he ripped the gun from his frontal, raising the musket to his face and aiming. He murmured underneath his breath and began to squeeze the trigger. Nathan felt breathless as he attempted to pant out something but a weak sound only came out. Even as the bullets switched power, the deer kept its gaze on him and it twitched her hollow ears to scope them out. The glint of the gun caught his eye and the night stood still. He heard Papa relax, the air leaving his lungs and his finger began to move.

          “No!”, Nathan shouted quickly, shoving him with his left shoulder. The loudest sound he’d ever witnessed rang in his ear drums, he was powerless to shoot the bullet that whizzed through the air. The gun had gone off and no longer did he sense eyes upon him and it perhaps was one of the loneliest feelings he’d ever experienced. A sorrow shook him and he covered his ears with his palms, feeling the blood rush in his veins and the heart stampede in his chest.

          “Dammit, Nathan!”, Papa shouted as he threw down the gun. Enoch gulped, visibly ill, even in the non-existence of light. Nathan looked up, hoping the bullet had only grazed or missed entirely the creature. It was standing no longer when his vision was not fuzzy from the adrenaline rush of the blow. Father elbowed his shoulder, “because of _you_ , we’ll have to finish the job.” He sat up quickly, gathering his things and they stared up at him from the forest floor.

          “F-finish the job?”, Enoch questioned, his voice breaking and wavering without strength. The fire had shaken him to core and it was evident as faint glimmer flickered across his pale streaked cheeks.

          A pistol in Papa’s belt that neither realized was there was revealed and Nathan’s heart sank. His large hand tugged it out from his waist, holding it in his hand while testing the grip simultaneously. “I don’t have all night, boys,” he grunted and began to start towards where the boy lay, painful cries echoing in the air. _What terrible children we lot must be._

          Nathan contemplated demanding that Enoch remain there as it took him a moment to stand up at all but he threw his idea out as Papa yelled out to them. They followed him _obediently--_ this time.

 

__________________________

 

          The oval moon broke the blanket of raven as they marched out from the shadows as if cracking open a coffin to daylight. The stars were sweeping the scene, intertwining, weaving and enlightening a lonely path to dawn. Nathan jogged after Papa and every swing of the pistol in his hand brought a flinch of terror to his conscious. The deer’s fallen shadow stretched over towards him, it swallowed him whole. _If only I'd taken the gun, shot near the soil and frightened him off_. The haunting moans of the animals were stabbing him open with every deliberating sound. Enoch stayed behind and did not approach the scene--Nathan was glad that he hadn’t. Papa clamored over the deer, watching it flail feebly, kicking out it’s legs. There was a stained mark on it’s thigh and Nathan thought it was a large patch of mud until it glistened as he moved. He knew it was blood. It trickled from a wound in the leg. The doe gave up the struggle, laying its head on the soil and all that could be heard was the recline of it’s heavy breathing in the air. It studied him again-- _trusted him_ \--he thought or simply just chose to believe. He felt for it with every tendril of himself and regretted everything. He almost wanted to bend down, pet it’s head softly and whisper calmly it’s ear.

          “ _You can go to the overplace now, that’s where Mama is.”_

          Papa shifted the pistol in his hands before looking over his side at the youngest of his sons with him. It was handed out to him. “Do me right, Nathan.”

          Nathan Hale took the gun without hesitation from his father and he vaguely felt him pat his shoulder as if he’d just won a prize. This was no achievement. It was heavier than he'd expected and the silver swirled around the grip as he tugged it closer to him. His fingers discovered the trigger and he knew very well he was carrying a life in his own hands. The cold had gently caressed his numb fingers as if guiding him. This night did not unveil the beauty of darkness. The deer did not blink, nor did it shut its eyes.

          Papa grew more impatient, “Nathan, shoot it.” They crossed their arms expectedly.

          His arm extended out, pointing it at these words. The heavens shifted around him and only when he felt tears welling bitterly in his eyes did he notice that the abyssal eyes were shut.

          “Nathan! _Fire the pistol, now!_ ”

          Papa’s voice rattled his bones and his knees trembled when his eyelids quivered. The force of nature pressed into his hand. He breathed out and squeezed. And when everything seems to perish, it is why he is unable to see the world in a grain of sand or witness heaven in wildflowers. The ball that traveled from the gun shook some life from the palm of his hand. He ended eternity for another in a second. Nathan collapsed to the soil feeling as if he’d been born and died at the same time. There was everything he hated: darkness and the absence of words. _Lives were only made of paper, so quick to crumble and destined to die ripped._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> \- None.


	17. Chapter Seventeen | Hidden Intimacy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Perhaps Ben needs to more careful. Nathan has a chance to figure things out.

**March 31st, 1768**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

           There was one night when Ben was forced to hide Jonas beneath his sheets when Papa came into his room unexpectedly. There was another morning when with every caress of Jonas’s elbow he could feel his own father's eyes upon him. This attachment felt dangerous, almost as if it was a possibility that they were not strong enough and it would consume them both. When he cannot go running into open arms their eyes are both glazed over with a desire and longing. Ben was the reverend’s son, he knew God in his bones and in every domestic interaction. He has one hand placed firmly over the bible’s pages and he knew the other was comfortably nested in the fingers of his sin. In the pews of the church, his throat sings a tune unfamiliar within these holy walls and his heart beats madly with burning defiance and unapologetic words.

           Ben tastes it on his tongue. However frightened he his he counts it as a collection of all his dangerous things. He feels the heat of the flame he is wandering too close to and the scold of certain fury against his skin; he has not yet had the fire teach him to know pain. Neither of the two was expecting John to reveal himself randomly, naught did they know how long he’d been watching them or seen the terrifying things they were performing. John didn’t say a word after they’d broken apart and yet still connected chest to chest. In his eyes Ben saw his own reflection shine across there with a visible elixir of fear churning madly there.

           “John…”

           His younger brother blinked rapidly, unsure of what to say. His mouth opened and then closed before he turned the other way and made his way back through the trees towards home as if he was just retracing his steps again like a lost object. Jonas and Ben met eyes, each nibbling on their bottom lip.

           “Perhaps it is best if we stay apart,” Ben suggested, breathing deeply and observing an earthworm burrow itself into the moist soil beneath his feet.

           Jonas was silent for a moment, beginning to pace in front of him in thought. “For how long?”, he asked, the squish of his boots pausing.

           “For as long as it takes.”

           Jonas shook his head, running his nails through the front of his hair and rubbing over his nervous eyelids. “We are a masquerade, Benny, and the masquerade is we.” Ben swallowed these words, allowed them to fill his tongue and slide into his stomach. He shut his mouth and listened, looking towards him as he soon sat beside him, their elbows brushing through their clothing. “A depressing parade it is," he said, "hiding ourselves underneath identity with the knowledge of violent rejection.” These words, though dark were comforting and Ben rested his head onto Jonas’s shoulder, pulling his knees up to his chest. “We risk intimacy, we can care for each other without ever being able to love.”

           Ben sighed, eyes shutting and feeling himself vaguely through reality itself; the rocking lull of the river stream mixed in the rise and fall of every breath. “We are destined to live a life of fiction, and however dangerous the outside appears, I find it more comfortable within the safely woven pages.”

           Jonas managed a grin, “You can play well into expectations. We’ll be masks embracing others and calling it love.”

           John did not mention the incident and neither did he want to avoid Jonas (it was quite the opposite). For the next few weeks a simple occasion where their clothing swiped against one another or for a second their eyes met for a careful century still had meaning even though they did not speak a single word.

 

____________________________

**April 6th, 1768**

Coventry, Connecticut

**\----- II -----**

 

           Richard Hale days of being “displeased” had been ended for more than a year ago. It was nearly a year and Papa was still bitter and ferocious. For once, it was not himself who was receiving the worst of his temper. Every end of the home shook and Nathan stuck his ear to the floor to listen through the cracks in the floorboards for their conversation. Due to the volume, this was not difficult. His older sister Eliza, now seventeen, had begun to work as a barmaid and into the late hours. Richard Hale was not “displeased”.

           Was Richard Hale “displeased” when Nathan accidently tracked mud into the kitchen through the back door? Was Richard Hale “displeased” when he was hesitant to kill something? Was Richard Hale “displeased” when Joanna wet the bed? Was Richard Hale “displeased” when David mindless placed his elbow on the table for a second? No, Papa was angry, he was frightening. And yet, somehow his siblings would be able to weed themselves back into their father’s affections. It had nearly been a year since Nathan yelled at his father, when he felt the sting of a slap against his cheek. He hates it most when he rises in the middle of the night without the pacing of his father’s feet on the wooden boards.

           He was wrong to say that everyone had forgotten about her or maybe it was too painful to remember. There were no stories, no jokes at the dinner table and Mama’s place from the table had effectively been erased as if it had never been there in the first place. He was haunted by what is and what is not. There is neither her echo coming back to him in his desolate thoughts or a dream flowering into any kind. Nobody was abandoning her memories but neither person in the household but himself wished to speak of her in any fond way. The death of her was the destruction of everything that came with her, and even his memories, of which he once watered and cherished daily, were wilted and crumbling into soot.

           Enoch is in his bed, sitting upon the mattress, silent, reading or drawing again. Does he remember who wove those quilted sheets for him? Eliza constantly had calluses on her palms and little dots of dried blood patterned against her tips of her fingers from a needle point. Does she not recognize her appearance in the mirror as that of her own mother? Richie and Billie are dressed in stockings that are just now beginning to tighten at the seams. Do they not know Mama’s own tireless handiwork? David stopped asking of Mama and if she was ever coming back; he seemed to be the only one who remembered. Occasionally, he’ll bring him to the cemetery they’ll drop flowers they pulled along the way and set them in front of her stone.

           Nathan found a tiny bird at one point with a wounded wing. Kept it in the shed outside of the main house in a little cage until it was better. It had shiny black eyes, a little maroon beak and snowy feathers. He wished he knew what it was like from a bird’s view, to know what it felt like to be live. To view everything different and know that outside of the Hale property there is a great world that hasn’t changed a bit. It was always just their suffocating walls where he wished to leave. He named the bird Liza and as he watched it float away, knowing that he would never see it again, he decided no longer to live in a shadow.

 

____________________________

**April 7th, 1768**

Setauket, New York

**\----- III -----**

 

           John folded his bed, placing the blankets underneath the mattress. Ben followed him, lathered him attention. John patted his pillow and placed it propped against the headboard. The older from his bed, pretending not to stare at him. John floated his quilt delicately on top of his bedspread before smoothing out all of the creases. Neither in any of these movements had John even made a gesture to speak to him or regard him in any way. Ben sat up on his mattress to address him. His younger brother had seen him embracing, seen him intimate with another of which he was not supposed to. The latter commenced a conversation before Ben ever had a chance to speak.

           “I’ve noticed increasingly Jonas is less,” he mentioned, rubbing a hand across his forehead to scoop the hair off his forehead and postulated himself in a chair near the door. He did not look anywhere but the floor, he appeared flustered or irritated.

           Ben recessed for a stage in a chaotic bought of silence, every shift of the wood that broke it was as gunfire in the dead of night. “I have my studies to care after and Jonas respects that.”

           John learned farther back in the chair and arched the side of his head upon his hand. “I quite miss him,” his eyes glanced up towards his older brother who was shifting uncomfortably under the scrutinization.

           Ben shrugged casually, “Myself included.” He couldn’t.

_Brother, tell me what you saw. Brother, let me know if you heard it all._

           He reached towards his brother, placing a hand on his own knee and exhaling. “What you saw…”, John wasn't confused but neither did he move to complete the sentence, “...it is far more complex than what greets the eye.”

           John shook his head fervently, his eyes remaining locked in a fury of indigo piercing him to the core. There were lies he was hiding beneath the skin, hanging still, flickering behind there armor as their dialect gurgled and passed. Ben felt like as an actor in the theater, staging the part of something he could ever be. “I saw nothing,” John lied. Both wished in a way that it was true. John had seen it all, he saw them and he knows it. For now, John files it to the back of his brain and consigns it to oblivion for a little longer. Benjamin is thankful.

 

_____________________________

 

           Their embraces had burnt his skin. He tastes their lips on his even when they are parted. A Sunday, Jonas in one of the inky pews as was usual. This time Ben did not look back to smile at him. _God is my shelter, God is my strength_ , he repeats these over and over. _With God I would have no life_ , his family is sitting beside him are so close their thighs are touching. Papa is already risen, speaking out towards those congregated that morning. Father’s voice turns to a dull roar in the background of his thoughts as he shuts his eyes and squeezes them shut. _Oh, but God cannot forgive me for my sins_ , his lips are moving to thus, _I am the sin_. There must be a mistake, _God never makes a mistake_ , but, _I am the mistake_. His flesh crawls as his abdomen is agitated and John places a hand on his knee to get him to stop murmuring under his breath.

           A lump is gathering in his throat and he Jonas’s figure is playing in his head. There it is again: murky, mysterious and hidden within every cove of himself. He chases him through the chambers of his heart. Faster his heart beats in against his ribs, bile rises in his throat and a prick of hot tears enter his eyes. _You will beg me to repent for my sin, how can I repent when the sin is I? I repent that I am living and I repent I know breath_. Ben opened his eyes, Papa’s voice still muted in the backdrop and he heard a child near the back begin to cry. A knot unwove in his ribs, crawling itself out from where it had been stitched. Quickly, Ben slapped a hand over his mouth and shot out of his seat. Papa passed a sharp glance his way and William grabbed at the back of his best coat to rip him back down into the stall. He rushed from the front door, turning round and heading out the closed double doors.

           Nobody came after him until an hour later when sermons had finished. Ben's stomach jittered and Jonas shot him a few questions that he was incoherent to. His stomach was empty and his gut was squeezing together in his abdomen. He stilled in the grass with his head hung between his knees, an odd color shading his cheeks. Ben was ill for a few days after, since his tumble in the river his cough had not left him for these many months. A fever chilled him to the bone this time and his stomach quivered not from sickness. His gut was fluttering as if a thousand bees were trapped underneath the layers of firm skin. It was around this time that Mama had another episode and it was several weeks before she was able to leave her room again. She was pale and the glimmer from her hair had stolen away, her eyes were addled and uninterested in anything. She never recovered that time and nor would she ever. Ben traveled by her doorway occasionally, a little glimmer of candlelight flickering from underneath the door. He could hear his father in there, reading a book or speaking softly to her.

           One time, their bedroom door had been left open a crack, the dim shine cutting into the dark hallway. He stepped in front of it, peering through the slither of flame in a way that would not alter the door or move it in any way. Papa had fallen asleep with an arm draped over Mama’s shoulder, both tugged tight one another. He crept into the room and extinguished the flame with a quick gust of air before he closed the door. It couldn’t be any longer now; and it wasn’t. Ben strided to his room after, climbing into bed, acknowledging that his younger brother was already asleep. He prayed for Papa, he prayed for Mama’s health, he prayed for all his brothers (especially for Samuel to grow a better brain). Quietly, he prayed for Jonas and _I couldn’t help but do so this night_.

           Ben had gotten used to not expecting his mother to rise before the sun and bid them adieu before they headed to the schoolhouse. Instead her bedroom door remained shut and the hallway was shadowed every time he came past it and headed up the stairs to the first floor. William only had another year or so in their father’s schoolhouse before he was to start an apprenticeship, Ben would leave a year after than and Samuel a year after that. He questioned how John would fare, he was a smart child, keen and quick to new ideas he learned. William and Samuel shared a small room at the end of the long hallway on the second floor while Ben shared it with his two youngest brothers. Isaac cried often, and as the youngest, was often let go after bad behavior. Despite his age, John began studying at their father’s schoolhouse a year younger, age eleven, than any of his older brothers had. Their mother’s sickbed was as a caved vertex in the house, a nestled corner in the center of everything in which there was great sadness within.

           There was something wrong with her lungs. The life she had was taken in the flash, and the disease had spread far too fast. Fairness does not govern life or death; for if it did, no good person would ever die young.

           The 20th of April, 1768. It was the day before the moon folded in half and the little dashing stars fell from the sky. He expected it, he knew it was coming, and yet, he was not prepared. Another day in his lessons, sitting in between John and Jonas as he tapped his quill on the surface of the desk. The door burst open, a messenger appeared. A short, ruddy cheeked boy who huffed out a breath as Ben lifted his tilted head off of his hand in curiosity. Papa discontinued his studies and drew a hand off of his desk, standing up to greet him. There was a moment of sharp whispers and blinking eyes.

           “What is going on?”, John asked him, leaning in closer on the edge of his seat.

           Ben shook his head, “I don’t know.” Jonas pursed his lips, his eyebrows furrowing in discontentment and confusion. Not even _he_ attempted to slide in a joke or two. The messenger patted Papa’s shoulder before shutting the door behind him and heading off on his way. There was grim quietude as Papa rubbed his face, digging fingers harshly into his swollen eyelids.

           “You all may go,” was all he said. It didn’t take anything more. All the students piled out of the door, obvious concern mixed with relief and agitation. Ben and his brothers remained seated. Jonas was the last one to leave, his fingers traveling in a fine line across his arm before breaking off and crossing him a soft, reassuring smile. Papa didn’t speak a word to either of them. They recognized the porcelain glint of grief that morphed his visage into that of an elderly man in a few seconds of dialogue. John held onto his wrist the whole way there, hanging his head to the ground. Across the porch were the flowers she’d always been so fond of, wilted to only brown petals that crunched underneath their shoes. As he stepped into his parent’s home for the last time and noticed how divergent the air felt in his lungs than the morning he left made an anger petrify him stiff to the ground. Papa went upstairs to Mama’s room, his brothers followed.

           She was still alive, receiving blood lettings from the doctor who had sent the messenger. She’d collapsed in the kitchen and been brought upstairs. Ben remembered a few weeks ago when she had fallen the first time and struck her forehead against the kitchen wash bin. The fingers on his hands coiled and cracked together. He allowed himself a moment to regain fortitude before going upstairs. No matter how well he’d prepared himself, he never believed in last times yet; and somehow he believed that there would be more. He believed foolishly he had forever, but now he has nothing more. Ben took a deep breath before gliding up the staircase, he choked on the air. _Oh, Mama, at least close the door behind you when you go, so that I do not linger by the crack on the hope you will return._  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> -


	18. Chapter Eighteen | Running Boy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben knows love also means loss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't published in a while, I've been caught up with other things. Enjoy!

**April 20th, 1768**

Setauket, New York

**\----- I -----**

 

          She knew. She knew she was going to die.

          They lined her bed, Papa sitting in a chair beside her bed side and cradling her fingers in his. For some odd reason, she appeared happier than she’d ever been in ages like among a storm a tiny flower was beginning to grow. Isaac was only six, hanging off the end of the bed with his feet swinging back and forth like a pendulum. William was on her other side, gently running circles into her arm. Samuel remained farther back in the room, his face buried deep within his hands and Ben knew John was grieving the same as his younger brother kept pressing closer and closer into his hip. He felt rather empty as a pocket of air that was full of only the greatest emotions; maybe everything he’d ever hoped for only existed in his dreams. Without action to do, Ben simply held his younger brother nearer to his side, a hand draped over his shoulder tightly.

          Mama peered up at their father with vindictive eyes, her body shuddering in a weakening fever. Her hair clung messily to her forehead and she nodded feebly at Papa who turned his head towards his sons. “Boys, would you mind stepping out for a moment?”. There was a time of hesitation as William groaned until Mama patted his arm and he stood up, Samuel followed and Isaac hopped off of the mattress. John began to head out as well, his head hung to to the ground. He scoped up as Ben began to follow. John was only ten, that is what stuck with him, that he soon would have no mother and barely had anytime to know her. Ben shut his eyes and nodded at his, staring directly into wide azure eyes that were lit up in clarity.

          “Benjamin, I would cherish only a moment with you,” a weak voice rang out from the bed and he shifted around to turn back. Papa patted her porcelain hands and the delicate veins poking through the pale skin. He approached and placed a hand upon his shoulder before he too exited the room, shutting the door behind him as he went. It was Mama and him, him and Mama as it always used to be before he’d grown. Her eyelids were half-shut, the sheets in a tangled array around her curved figure as she lay on her side and she gestured towards the chair Papa was recently seated in. He stole the seat, the legs scraping against the floorboards. The evening has already fallen and it couldn’t be any later than seven at night. He was almost afraid to touch her, frightened that if he did she would shattered like glass in his hands.

          When she spoke, her voice was promising, as if every word she was saying was going to be her last and she was settling upon the idea of what exactly to say. A yawn admitted from his mouth. “Benjamin,” she began slowly, “--I am going to die.” Ben swallowed at this, and she did reach for him in comfort. Her eyes were watered out, reminding him of ponds and the little nooks and crannies of all his favorite brooks and streams. Would he ever feel that type of comfort again? Ben opened his mouth to speak but she interrupted him, “Repeat nothing of this, not to your father, nor to John or any of your brothers.” She was far too exhausted to beg for a promise. His mouth went dry, his teeth jammed together tightly to control the trembling in his own skin. He only nodded and she accepted this.

          “I’ve never seen a heart as large as yours, Benjamin,” her voice, even through the many injuries was strong as her soul had always been. “Of everything upon this earth, you are the most curious artifact I’ve ever born witness to. You cherish reticence as a form of strength.” She coughed, bending her head down and Ben grasped for her arm, holding onto it. “No matter your silence, it is your weapon. Your words are crammed into the pockets of your coat and in the back of your throat.” His eyes began to brim with tears and he held his breath.

          “Mama, I am tired,” but he could never sleep again. She seemed saddened by this, as if she may never see him again. Mama pursed her lips into a firm line and exhaled morosely. “Cannot this wait until the morning?” He was a coward afraid of words. Bartering courage for a safety that he would come to despise.

          “Yes, goodnight, dear.”

          Three words came to mind as his hand clasped the door but he shook them from himself and they trickled to the floor after him. “Goodnight, Mama.”

 

____________________________

 

          Ben did not sleep that night for a fear of dreaming or of a nightmare. Although his eyes closed and his mind wandered away, they were never at rest. He felt the moonlight outside of the window soak the floorboards and glide over his eyelids. He tossed back and forth for hours attempting to sleep away a sadness and hoping he would not awake at the end of the lifetime. His memories of her would be like as a ghost does within him; transparent and barely visible through the obscurity of his mind. Somehow he knew, Mama was in the next room over, staring at the same ceiling and knowing it was her last night alive, feeling it in her bones. Ben rolled away from the shadowed ceiling, blinking the tears from his eyes several times over. He was just a child afraid of heights and she was a cliff he stood too near to the edge of. The house would never be the same. Darkness echoed through his bones like a hollow cave, it was as a double edged sword. Ben buried his face farther into the pillow sensing himself crumple into a silent anger. He could not longer accept this fate, anger entered the very core of himself.

          He did not sleep.

 

**\----- II -----**

 

          In the morning, Ben watched John and Isaac slowly wake one after the other. At one point Isaac came over to prod him awake and he quickly shut his eyes. The younger hesitated, rising a hand over him before retracting it. He soon left the room and Ben was all alone to stare up at the ceiling. It was only after nine in the morning that Samuel came to wake up, his footsteps on the stairs until they were at the foot of his bed. Ben again clamped his eyes and feigned sleep.

          “I know you’re awake, Ben,” Samuel whispered and the older brother reluctantly opened their eyes. He came over and sat on the end of the mattress, leaning an arm on the backboard. He looked awful: rouge rings encircled his eyes, he appeared still asleep, chapped lips, a messy mop of light honey curls to top it off and a sloppy dress with an unbuttoned shirt. “Papa is having us in prayer downstairs since we will not be attending church this weekend.” His eyes dropped, his gullet bobbing wearily.

          Ben did not reply and deviated on his side to face the wall. “Why should I pray for her?”

          Samuel, knowing who he was speaking of, widened his eyes and blinked at him. “Ben, she is--”

          “Dying, yes, Samuel, I know,” he reclined up and glared him directly in the face. “She will live, she has not perished yet.” His eyes were tiny slits as Samuel slid himself off the elder’s bed and made his way to the doorway. He paused as if meaning to say something important and he even tossed a glance over his shoulder. The door slammed slightly behind him. Ben sunk farther into his pillow and curled his legs up to his stomach. Silently, he prayed even if he did not believe God would hear him.

 

______________________________

  


          Ben lay in bed for the entire day observing the colors fading in and out of the room. Nobody came to see summon him again until six in the evening. The tread vibrating through the floor towards him and with every thud he burrowed himself farther into his bed, pulling the sheets over his head. He felt the door open and close until another ripped the covers from his head to the striking reveal of the fading sky lights. William blinked down at him with a miserable and agonizing expression. His mouth was pursed tightly shut until he said only two words.

          “It’s time.”

 

_________________________________

 

          Every step closer to that room felt terrifying, was agonizing in every way. Closer and closer the door loomed on the center of the hallway, appearing as far as the heavens and the distance. He swallowed and his head spun, brows furrowing together on his forehead as William prodded him forward. Without his insistence, Ben doesn’t know if he ever would've made it to the wooden doorway before him. There were voices in the room that he could not make out until he stepped in between the frame. Glimmers drew themselves across the bedsheets and it was the exact same scene as the night before. He felt oddly out of place like a muddy rain cloud floating about among a perfectly clear spring day. It took a few seconds before he arched his head towards his mother who was lying on the bed, this time on her back, her eyes floated feebly towards him. She could barely hold them over. She had been bent too far and this time, she was finally breaking. The corners of her lips would of made a smile had she the strength. The shine of her fair hair had gone and the glow of her eyes was clouded over by the dust of life.

          Ben hesitated to approach her, but as he did Papa turned around and he witnessed for just a moment the shine of a tear in his eye before Ben snapped his gaze away. Her dry lips moved, “Ah, Benjamin,” it sounded as if she’d been longing for him for years and decades. Ben could not smile as he approached her closer until his fingers brushed against the quilted sheets. A quiver rolled down his spine as her eyes followed him and he leaned down to get closer to her side. She cleared her throat, “Benjamin, I request that you look after your younger brothers. You know how Samuel gets into trouble…” In the back, Samuel seemed ashamed and buried his hands further into his hands. She chuckled, “John loves you so. Please, lead a fair example for him, he has your clever mind.” She paused a moment and Ben was tense, his shoulders stiff as he did nothing but keep his brows knitted together. “Isaac is so young, oh so, _so young_. He will require another to guide him, Benjamin I know this will be you. It must be.” A loud mass of sobs could of heard behind him while his face remained as stone.

          Ben shot up quickly, “No,” a voice that did not feel as his own broke out from his vocal chords. “Why do you say such things? You are not going to die!”, his voice was trembling as he faked whatever confidence he believed he may of had.

          Papa appeared shocked but did not make a move to quiet him. Mama only pressed her lips firmly together, her eyes wrinkling sadly as a tear twinkled in the corner. “Benjamin, please-”

          “No!”, he growled, his hands coming down as his sides, “I will not reside resting while you waste away obedient to your grave!” At this point John tugged at his shirt in an attempt to have him stop but he shook him off like a dog. “If she is dying why aren’t the lot of you doing anything?!”, he huffed, his teeth grinding together as his hair fell before his eyes.

          Mama did not try anything and she was too feeble to reach for him although with every tendril of herself she wished she could. “A solitary flower is beautiful on its own.” Ben felt his limbs give out and a saddening anger gripped him across the chest. “Put your head up, you are a lion, you mustn't forget that... because neither will the sheep.” Her voice broke off and only became air. _I watched you suffer, wilt and die. All I did was sit and watch as you went to part. God may of eased her pain but he broke my heart._ The shine of her eyes shut away into an empty lifeless gaze. Her body stopped shuddered and appeared at rest.

          “Mama?”, Ben called out gently. An unsummoned grief rose in his throat. He reached for her, shaking her. “Mama!”, he cried and his eyes blurred. Papa put his head between his knees and his back began to twitch. He had lost a wife. A sighing sound admitted from his throat, breaking the boundaries of whatever he was holding back within himself. A sob, that rose within him, bubbling in his chest. It rasped through him, racking every bone in his skeleton. He shook her again and she did not move. Mama was empty; Mama was gone. In his petrified shock, two hands reached in the darkness for him and slid across his back, forcing him towards them. Ben fought against William who attempted to console him. He wiggled free, stepping back and bolting from the room. His feet were fast on the stairs, lightning and quicker than he’d ever been in his life. The carpet slid out from under his feet and he continued to run. It was nearly dark outside, a frigid spring chill stumbling across his muscles and seizing them in their fervor.

          His eyes were watered as the door slammed behind him and he did not hear any footsteps behind him as he expected. He ran and ran and ran away believing maybe if his feet carried him faster he could outrun his grief. His guard was up and his feet crunched rapidly over dead leaves, tripping over fallen branches and overgrown roots. Ben did not discover he’d been sobbing the entire way there until through his blurred vision, a few feet from the river, he did not see the log as it slammed against his forehead. He fell to the frozen terrace, lying on his back and glaring up at the sky above him. A single bird flew above him in contrast to the amethyst nuit descending upon him. He felt warm tears on his cheeks and blood on the surface of his cranium. Ben did not make a move to gather himself up until his stomach lurched and he leaned himself over a tree, his stomach jolting and shivering into the bushes. He shakily wiped his mouth before collapsing once again.

          Ben succumbed the weight that was clutching his heart. The distance he had between himself as the house was raw and it tore him apart. His arms wrapped around his stomach and his brought his knees to his chest. He cried until his throat was so dry that he could not utter another word; he cried until he could not long feel any part of his body and he was numb; he cried for hours and what seemed like days; he cried past obscurity when it was already night; he cried until he had no tears left. There was only pain as he felt himself fill up like a jar of words until he’d finally toppled over. The entire time his eyes were shut he only saw his mother, peaceful and now free from pain. _Please, Mama, come back, I cannot carry this pain_. _Can she see me? Can she hear me? Can she feel me? Can she still love me?_

          The side of his face was buried in the dirt as he laid for a thousand years. It was a million emotions spilling forth that he never knew he had within him. He sobbed until everything became nothing at all. In the pitch dusk, he stared into the woods as if he expected Mama to break through the trees at any moment to gather him in her arms. He’d wrap his arms around her neck so tightly. He dreamed that night in the forest that he squeezed her until she became only sand slipping through his fingers. Her ashes traveled a thousand movements of the wind, through deserts and across seas until they were at rest. He’ll meet her there someday soon.

 

_________________________________

 

          Someone shoved him. Ben violently crouched up, his marked eyes trying to find focus. A large figure kneeled down beside him, and pressed their hands into his shoulders. It was dawn break and the sun tore over the mountains.

          “Ben,” a harsh voice snapped. Ben recessed movement and the leaves beneath him shuffled.

          “Papa?”, his head and his arms were without any strength. Father reached for him, pulled him closer into the hook of his arms, his hands on his back.

          “Oh, Ben, I was so worried about you,” his tone was shaking and he gripped him near as his son’s chin curled in the nape of his neck. Ben did not move but he shivered against the cold and relished the warmth of Papa’s coat. He did not struggle against him nor did he run. He sat as he buried his head into his father’s chest.

          “I-I am sorry,” Ben choked out, a sob breaking up in his throat as he leaned into his father’s arms.

          “Ben, I know, I know.” That was all he said and they shook together, wrestling and grasping at one another in their misery. Grief was a journey with many destinations. He had an apology for everything.

 

_________________________________

 

          It started with Ben, climbing in Papa’s bed at night to comfort him. John and Isaac began to fit themselves in, tired of sharing the large room by themselves alone in their emotions. Samuel and William piled blankets onto the floor with pillows and slept aligning the bed. There was nothing said between them but the comfort of having others with each other. They will mourn death the rest of their lives; it is only just love after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HISTORICAL NOTES:  
> \- Susannah Tallmadge died in 1768 on April 21st. 
> 
> This chapter is kinda bad lmao rip.

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, comments are the greatest part of my day, really any comments I adore, if you comment: thank you very dearly, I read every one! You can follow me on Tumblr @sonofhistory and remember every piece of historical information has been researched, have a question about something historical within the text? Contact me via the Tumblr I provided you or comment!
> 
> Thank you for reading, this will be a long journey.


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